


A Once and Future Thing

by distant_rose



Series: Little Pirates [25]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, CS Movie: Little Pirates Addition, Cue a shit ton of popular culture references, F/M, In which Beth makes bad decisions, In which Jim Hawkins is tired of this bullshit, Time Travel, Vengeful Beth Jones meets Vengeful Captain Hook
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2018-12-19 23:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 51,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11908776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distant_rose/pseuds/distant_rose
Summary: Beth’s quest for vengeance against her boyfriend’s killer goes a bit haywire when she and her best friend Jim Hawkins are sent to the Enchanted Forest - thirty years into the past. Now, they must figure out how to find a way back to the future without ruining the first meeting between Beth’s parents, Emma Swan and Killian Jones. (Tumblr prompt/CS Movie: Beth Edition)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt states: "Hi, I have a little pirates one shot request, maybe when Elizabeth and one of her brothers are a little bit older, they somehow get suck into the past, basically like 3x22, but instead they see CS meeting for the first time and all that,if that makes sense lol" This is actually my favorite prompt ever. Like I didn’t even know I wanted it until you sent this to me ages ago. Apologies on the wait. I feel like you’ve been waiting for this ages. Anyway, I loved this and I’m going to go a bit overboard because this could never be a one-shot in my mind. In fact, I’m projecting it to be 4 chapters at the moment. Yes, I’m actually writing a multi-chapter for this one because I really want to explore it. Also, I hope you will forgive me for switching out Beth’s brothers for Jim Hawkins, I felt he was a more appropriate partner for Beth’s journey into the past meeting Season 2 Emma and Killian.

Beth Jones had one focus and that was to kill the sorceress Circe of Aeaea. Nothing else mattered as she stormed the witch’s castle and met the bulk of her armed forces. The bodies her sword ran through were only just stepping stones to her goal. Not faces, not even people, just roadblocks to be torn down.

“Beth!”

She ignored the voice calling her and continued forward, slashing and climbing. She couldn’t think. If she stopped, then it would all be for nothing. Advance and survive. That was her mantra; a constant mental lamentation that kept her going, kept her fighting. Advance and survive. Stab and step.

“Beth stop!”

Circe's men were nothing more than bags of meat under her blade, not even proper swordsmen. She had been trained at her father’s knee and had spent more time with swords than she had with dolls. Her childhood was spent with her father and grandfather, practicing in the yard when most children played football. Her sword was more than an instrument, it was an extension of her. Slashes, parries and stabs were part of a well-practiced dance where she was a master and they were but novices. She could have held her sword in her weak hand, ate cake with the other and still she would have cut them all down like they were nothing.

“Elizabeth Jones you're going to regret this!”

She was done with his nagging. He just didn’t stop; an echo of a time when she actually believed there was justice in the world. She pulled her sword out of a soldier’s body, flicking the blood off of it with a small movement of her wrist and turned to her harasser with furious green eyes.

“Stop following me, Jim."

Jim Hawkins, Captain of the Silver’s Spell and her former best friend, did not heed her command. He kept scaling the steps, blood and gore staining his boots and the bottom of his long brown coat. He returned her fierce glare with one of his own.

“No,” he replied firmly, stepping over the mass of bodies effortlessly.

“This isn’t your fight. It’s mine."

She lifted her sword, the one he had crafted for her nearly two years ago, and pointed it towards his chest. It was both a dare and a threat. If he dared come closer, she would cut him down as well.

Jim looked down at the sword then back at her face and scoffed. He didn’t falter for a moment, only stopping when the point of her blade tapped against the leather of his jacket.

“You won’t strike me.” The way he said it infuriated her, as if this was a written fact. There wasn't even an ounce of doubt in his grey eyes.

“You don’t know that,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Oh, but I do,” Jim sighed heavily, bringing his hand up and pressing her sword aside without much effort. Beth didn’t resist the movement, allowing her blade to fall to her side. “I know you, which is why I know you’re making a terrible mistake.”

“She needs to die, Jim.” Beth’s voice had a hint of desperation in it. “She’s needs to go. Will deserves justice.”

Will, the man she had loved and even contemplated marrying, had been dead for nearly six months now. Yet, it still felt raw and fresh like it happened yesterday. Whenever she closed her eyes, all she could see was Circe turning him into sea foam and watching him yet again vanish before her eyes while she was powerless to stop it. She could still feel his hand slipping from hers as he turned into nothingness, leaving her behind with a gaping hole in her chest. It was the reason she never slept without finding herself at the bottom of a bottle.

“Does he need justice or do you need revenge?” he asked calmly, his hand rising to brush against her cheek.

“Sometimes they’re the same thing."

“No, they’re not. And you know that. What would your father say if he saw you right now?” Jim’s question had almost a pleading tone to it.

She froze at the question, closing her eyes for a moment. Her father didn’t know where she was, let alone what she was doing. She hadn’t spoken to him since Will’s funeral. She knew for a fact that her father would not approve of his daughter mindlessly hunting down the witch who had taken the love of her life away. He had pleaded with her not to seek revenge, to not gave away her soul to an endless pursuit like he once did for Milah, but Beth could not let this stand. Their final words with each other had been heated and the anger she had felt towards him and his inability to understand her pain had led her to spiriting away in the middle of the night and stealing the Jolly. She could not let Will’s murderer get away with destroying her future. She couldn’t let go.

Jim didn’t need to know this however. He would only use it as fodder against her like he usually did. Despite being a pirate, Jim Hawkins had a serious conscience and loved to lord it over everyone, especially her.

“Stick her with the pointy end,” she retorted, turning on her heel and continuing up the steps.

“Elizabeth, where are you going?”

“I thought that was obvious,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m going to gut the witch bitch.”

“This is her castle. She knows you’re here, especially with the blood trail you’ve been leaving. She’s either long gone or you’re about to walk into a trap,” Jim replied, lengthening his strides so he could catch up with her.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” she retorted, not even stalling. “I’m well aware the bitch is setting a trap for me, thank you very much. I may have not gone to college, but I’m not a moron.”

Jim gave her a befuddled look and opened his mouth to ask her what the hell she meant by it, but Beth held up her hand to silence him.

“I know you think I’m a child, Jim, but I know what I’m doing. I know I’m going into a trap. She knows that I know. That’s what makes it fun,” Beth sighed, taking her hand down so she could take a flask out of her long red greatcoat. She took a swig before handling it to Jim, who took it without question.

“You're absolutely mad,” he said with a shake of his head.

“I’m glad you’re finally catching on."

The rest of their walk was spent in silence, save for the echoing of their boots against the marble. Beth wouldn’t look at Jim. She couldn’t look at him. She could feel his eyes on her and she could feel the weight of his unspoken words resting on the tip of his tongue like they were pressing on her shoulders instead. She didn’t want to hear them.

They stopped in front of an arched doorway. Jim hovered behind her, a step too close. If he had been anyone else, Beth would have turned around and booted him. However, there was too much history between them however; nearly three years’ worth of it. The time frame didn’t seem like much, but so much had happened in those years. She was fairly certain nineteen-year old Beth Jones would not recognize twenty two-year old Beth.

“She’s on the other side of this door,” Beth muttered, taking a cloth out of her satchel and taking a moment to clean the blood off her sword. “I can feel her magic.”

“And I feel the need to remind you that this is both a trap and a mistake. It’s not too late to turn back."

She let out a noise of frustration, turning to face him and tossing the soiled cloth to the side. “Yes. I’m aware, yet, despite all of your warnings and whining, you’re still here. That’s the only thing I don’t get,” she snapped, looking up at him in irritation.

“Because I made a promise,” he said simply. “And I’m going to keep it.”

“Oh, fuck off, you melodramatic bastard."

“Not being melodramatic, just keeping my word."

“That promise was to help me get the beans so I could go home. It didn’t extend indefinitely. You fulfilled your promise, now just get the fuck out of here.”

“No."

Beth let out a noise of frustration, running her fingers through her hair and glaring at him. He remained both unfazed and unmoved. He merely stared down at her with a slight lift of his eyebrows.

“Fine,” she said through clenched teeth. “Just don’t get in my way.”

She kicked at the doors, stumbling backward when they didn’t move. Jim’s eyebrows rose to his hairline and he made a noise of amusement low in his throat. She whipped around to glare at him.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t even say anything,” he said, but there was a upwards tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Let’s keep it that way,” she replied, putting her hands on the doors.

She gave them a tentative push but they didn’t budge. She frowned, tilting her head and studying them for a moment. A look of frustration crossed her face once more.

“This is a really shitty trap if I can’t get in,” she muttered under her breath.

Jim moved from behind and grabbed onto the metal rings that were attached to the door, giving Beth a sardonic look.

“That’s because you pull them up, not push. Paying attention to detail is everything.”

“Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Magoo,” she responded with a roll of her eyes.

“I have no idea what you’re referencing, but I’m assuming that’s probably the point,” he sighed as he pulled the rings towards him and opened the doors.

“Damn straight."

They entered into a great hall made of white marble and stained-glass windows. The lighting in the hall was bright and completely different from the rest of the castle and Beth squinted a bit under the harsh difference. On their third step into the hall, there was a loud, slow clapping that resounded and echoed off the walls. Jim and Beth both paused.

At the end of the hall, there was a large marble throne stood on an elaborate pomp. A rich purple canopy was raised above it with matching the pillows that furnished the seat of the throne. A pale woman lounged on top of them, looking at both of them with a predatory grin. Her golden eyes flashed as she regarded them, looking like a lion eyeing prey caught in a trap.

A cold fury took hold of Beth as she met the woman’s gaze and squared her shoulders. She wanted nothing more than to rush forward and strike her, but Beth knew better. The woman on the throne was no ordinary woman. She was Circe of Aeaea, a sorceress with magic beyond even her own and she was not someone to be taken lightly.

“Well, well, well,” Circe grinned as she arose from her lounging position to sit more properly, brushing her dark hair over her shoulders. “As I live and breathe, Little Beth Jones and her pirate pet too. I wondered when your bloodied footsteps would come to my door. It took you longer than I imagined. I’m almost disappointed.”

“I honestly don’t care,” Beth replied, stepping forward again. “You’re not going to be living and breathing for much longer.”

“You know, as I was sitting here, I was contemplating the nature of apples,” Circe responded, as if Beth hadn’t said anything at all.

She lifted her hand and Beth stopped in her tracks, waiting for an attack. Circe gave her an amused look before flicking her wrist. A golden apple appeared in her hand and she took a bit out of it. The sound of her teeth puncturing its flesh sounded throughout the hall and caused the hollow drum in Beth's stomach to call in return. She couldn't honestly couldn't remember the last time she ate but eating had become of a very little importance over the past few months in the face of her revenge

“As I was saying, I was contemplating the nature of apples,” she repeated, juice dripping from her lips. “And how they don’t fall far from trees, but you didn’t just fall did you, Little Beth? You became just like the tree itself. You, my dear, give a whole new meaning to "Daddy’s little girl." Look at you. An angry slut drunk on revenge. He must be proud.”

Beth said nothing, merely gripped her sword tighter, ignoring the trembling in her fingers. She wanted so badly to react, but if she did then it would all be for nothing. Everything she had worked for in the past six months would be for nothing.

Circe just kept eating her apple, chuckling at Beth as if sensing the rage was radiating off of her. Everything seemed to be a game to her.

“I have to say, I’m a bit disappointed in you. You are honestly made of magic, but you never use it. People with your potential are rare and it’s just all wasted on that pirate delusion of yours. I thought killing that boy would set you free, but here you are, still thinking you can just kill me with a sword like a pathetic mortal. Such a waste, but beauty never did come with brains,” she said casually as she tossed the leftover apple core to the side.

“Don’t talk about him."

“Don’t talk about who? Your little boy toy? The mermaid prince from a kingdom of no consequence? What was his name? William, I believe. Why can’t I talk about him?” she asked, leaning her elbow on the arm of her throne and resting her cheek in her hand.

“I loved him and you took him from me. You don’t deserve to speak his name,” Beth hissed, anger rising.

“There is so little you can do to stop me. William. William. William. Your precious Will. Like I said, I did you a favor. What would he say if he saw you now and saw what you really are? You might be the product of True Love, but you have a dark heart, Elizabeth Jones. Tell me, did it feel good to run your sword through my soldiers? I bet it did.”

“You’re right, it did. It felt good because every single time I slayed one of your men, I was closer to getting my revenge,” Beth replied.

Circe laughed in delight, golden eyes glittering with malicious mirth.

“It’s delightful to see history repeat itself. Truly. I didn’t think you would reach the stage where you could admit murder so casually. It’s like you’re the second coming of your father - Captain Hook reborn and I created you,” Circe said in amusement.

She scoffed. “You didn’t create me.”

“Oh, but I did,” she replied, tapping her finger against her chin. “I took a clever, arrogant little girl and I turned her into a violent ruthless killing machine with a one-track mind and that one-track is me. Though I do admit your genes made it easy. Obsessive behavior is probably a familial trait.”

“You really enjoy listening to yourself talk, don’t you?” Beth asked, trying to focus on agitating Circe instead of getting agitated herself.

“Almost as much as you enjoy killing, Little Beth."

Beth rolled her eyes and nearly jumped as Jim put a hand on her shoulder. She moved her foot back to step on his. She couldn’t afford to take her attention away from Circe. One moment of distraction and it would all be over.

“What’s the plan here?” Jim whispered in her ear. “Or you just going to be catty with her all day until she fries us?”

“The plan is for you to not bug me,” Beth remarked quietly, keeping in contact with the sorceress.

“Ah, so much tension there. Perhaps Will didn’t mean that much to you after all since you replaced him so easily and with your old teacher too. Darling, didn’t your parents ever tell you that older men are nothing but trouble,” Circe asked, nonchalantly rising from her throne.

She stepped towards them. Jim stepped away, but Beth remained where she was. Her right hand went to the pocket of her greatcoat where a bottle of squid ink was concealed. This was what Beth had been waiting for – Circe getting cocky.

She circled around them, smirking. Beth just waited. She needed the sorceress close in order to pull this off.

“Oh, my sweet, you shouldn’t have come here, but you never know when to quit, do you? Your dear old Daddy even knew that. Retired and got himself a bunch of brats instead of getting skewered by the Dark One,” Circe purred.

As she settled closer, Beth smirked and took her vial of squid ink out of her pocket. However, as she moved to toss it at the sorceress, a hand caught her arm.

“Is that what I think it is, Little Beth?” Circe, taking her arm and yanking it backward. “Squid ink? Oh, my dear, my dear, this could work on you, it could work on the Dark One even, but not me, Precious. Didn’t you read your mythology? I’m a goddess. The daughter of the sun itself. My magic doesn’t work like your magic.”

“Fuck,” Beth breathed out, taking to yank her arm out of Circe’s grasp.

“Such foul language, what would your parents sat?” Circe admonished. “You need a lesson, my dear, and that’s what I intend to give you. What should I do? Should I take away your hand too? Then you’ll really be just like Daddy. No. That wouldn’t work. That’s not severe enough. Perhaps a history lesson would teach you.”

Beth saw Jim reach for his sword out of the corner of her eye. She let out a noise of frustration. This was why she didn’t want him to follow her. He was going to end up collateral damage just like everyone else.

Circe laughed, making it clear that she had noticed Jim as well. She snapped her fingers and he frozen in place.

“Leave him out of this!” Beth hissed.

“Oh my, my, my. The new boy toy thinks he’s a hero too  He can join in on your little lesson. I think it will be one for the ages. Enjoy the past, my darlings.”

All Beth knew after that little taunt was pain and a bright light. It felt as if her body was being fitted into a compressed tube. She wanted to curl into a ball and shield herself from the pain, but she couldn’t move and she felt like her skull was being crushed. She wondered briefly if she was dying.

Just as Beth thought every part of her was going to explode, she landed on something. Hard. She let out a grunt of pain and rolled to the side, trying to catch her breath. Her lungs felt oxygen starved, causing her to nearly hyperventilate. She couldn’t believe she was still alive.

“Gods, you’re not nearly as light as I thought,” Jim wheezed, holding his ribs.

“Really? You’re going to complain about my weight right now? I mean I’m more still surprised that she didn’t pulverize us or something. Fuck, of course, she’s a goddamn goddess. Just my fucking luck."

Beth wrapped her arms around herself, curling into a ball and trying not to cry. All of her work had been for nothing. How the fuck was she supposed to go up against a goddess? Better yet, how did one kill a goddess? She didn’t know and just felt completely overwhelmed by that knowledge.

“Hey, hey,” Jim said quietly, placing his hand on her shoulder. “Now is not the time to be feeling sorry for ourselves. Pull yourself together. We need to figure out where the hell we are…”

She opened her eyes, surveying her surroundings and frowning. She sat up a bit, wincing slightly as her chest felt tender. She placed a hand against her ribs and groaned.

“I think I bruised myself a bit."

“Well, I definitely know you bruised me,” Jim said with a snort. “Any idea where we might be?”

“Well, one thing is for certain, we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore,” Beth muttered, scanning the area.

They were in a densely forested area. There were lots of thick trees and tall parched-looking grass. The air felt dry and barren. Wherever they were, it felt like the realm was experiencing a severe drought. It gave her a heavy feeling. She highly doubted Circe’s choice of destination for them was a friendly one.

“You’re referencing something again,” Jim said, slightly annoyed.

“Always am,” Beth said distractedly, eyes still scanning their surroundings.

Jim opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the sound of a loud roar that sent cold chills down Beth’s spine. She had never encountered such a noise before, she had a vague idea what made it. Though she had been born in Storybrooke, she had been brought up on the tales, myths and history of multiple realms and there was one particularly nasty creature that Grandma Snow had told her about that made a roar like that. She looked to Jim for confirmation. Terrified green eyes met grey.

“Ogres,” Jim confirmed grimly.

“So, we’re in the Enchanted Forest then,” Beth whispered, immediately looking around for her sword. She found it not too far from where Jim had been laying. She picked it up, gripping it tightly. “I thought ogres weren’t a problem anymore!”

“They aren’t,” Jim confirmed. “Circe did say ‘enjoy the past.’ For all we know, she could have sent us back to the height of the Ogre Wars.”

“Fucckkkkkkkkkk,” Beth groaned in frustration. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

She sucked in a breath as the ogre came into view. Her face went pale at the size of it and she couldn’t help but gape. It looked like the troll from Harry Potter on steroids and she highly doubted her sword would do much damage.

She was about to die from being crushed by a goddamn ogre.

Jim grabbed her hand harshly, yanking her backward.

“Don’t just stand there! Run, Elizabeth!” he shouted in her ear.

He didn’t wait for her response, practically dragging her with him as he started running. She stumbled a bit before breaking his hold on her and starting her own sprint. She couldn’t help but look back at the gigantic beast behind them.

“Stop looking it or you’re going to be dinner!” Jim hollered at her.

“It literally looks like it just walked off the set of Harry Potter. How the fuck do you kill something like that!?” Beth replied, ignoring his command and glancing back at the ogre with some fear.

“Less referencing, more running. Only you Elizabeth, god-fucking-damn it!”

“Hey!” She attempted smack his shoulder but missed, unable to run and hit him at the same time.

“This is not the time to get offended. I swear to the gods, if this thing doesn’t kill us, I will strangle you,” he hissed as they reached a clearing.

It was an open field that looked like it had once been farmed, judging by the poorly managed post fences that surrounded it. Beth was about to hop over the fence in hopes of putting at least one obstacle between her and the ogre when she caught something out of the corner of her eye.

People.

They were on the other side of the field, along a tree line. Beth nudged at Jim’s shoulder. When she caught his attention, she gestured to the small cluster of people with a movement of her head.

“Civilization. Maybe they can help us?”

“Or they could capture us and kill us."

The ogre had yet to reach the clearing but judging by the roaring behind them, it wouldn’t be long. They needed to think and fast.

“Or they could know how to kill that thing. I mean, one of them has a bow. The one in the disgustingly pink cardigan that only my grandmother would wear. I don’t know how helpful that could be, but long range weapons seem to be the way to go. God, I wish I had a gun,” she replied, raking her fingers through her hair.

“You want to convene with strangers in order to take down an ogre instead of doing the sensible thing of running like hell and hoping it goes for that unfortunate lot instead of us?” Jim questioned flatly.

“Yes,” Beth said firmly. “We can’t run forever.”

“If we end up hanging from the neck, I am going to fucking haunt you in the afterlife,” he replied with a heavy sigh before turning around and pushing back against the fence in preparation of a mad sprint.

“You always say that, but we haven’t died yet,” she replied, copying his pose.

“The keyword there is ‘yet,’ Elizabeth. Ready for another mad dash into most certain peril?”

She let out a humorless laugh, wiping the sweat from her brow. “Always.”

Both of them pushed off the post for momentum, the ancient wood whining against the force. As they got closer, the people at the other end of the clearing seemed to notice them and two moved forward to meet them. Beth visibly paled when she got close enough to make out their faces. She stopped in her tracks.

“No fucking way,” she breathed, stumbling backward in her shock.

No longer vigilant in where she was stepping, she tripped over a root. Beth made no motion to get up, too stunned by what she was seeing. A roar sounded behind her. Closer. The ogre was about to make its appearance.

“Beth! Get up!” Jim shouted.

Beth was too focused on the woman in front of her. The woman in the pink cardigan that only Grandma Snow would ever wear. Her description had been a little too on the nose apparently.

“This isn’t happening. This isn’t fucking happening."

“Elizabeth” This time Jim’s shout was out of fear than urgency.

And that was when the ground shook and Beth peered over her shoulder. The ogre was back. A sense of panic attack took hold and she scrambled to get back up. She pushed herself off the ground and ran straight into Snow White. Green eyes met and both went wide for a moment.

“Move,” Snow White commanded, pushing her future granddaughter roughly to the side and stringing her bow.

Jim immediately grabbed Beth by the shoulders and pulled her backwards until they were closer to the trees. Beth watched in fascination as Snow White aimed her bow and coolly shot the ogre in the eye. She made it look effortless. Beth had always known her grandmother was a good archer and had even tried to teach her how to shoot, but she never stuck to archery like she did to swordplay. A part of her now wished she had given archery more consideration.

The ogre let out a death-rattle shriek before tumbling to the ground. The ground shook violently as it fell to the earth. Snow White gave the recently deceased monster a look of disgust before turning back to Jim and Beth with narrowed eyes.

“Now that we have that settled. Who are you?” she asked, placing her bow over her shoulder and crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Before either Beth nor Jim could speak, they had blades held to their necks. A petite but fierce looking Asian woman was holding Jim at swordpoint and Beth nearly snorted. Jim was one of the best swordsmen she knew. It wouldn’t take him much to bat that heavy looking sword away. The size advantage was his. She glanced down at the sword at her own throat, following the length of the steel to meet the face of her captor. She let out an audible gasp. It felt as if the air had been stolen from her lungs.

She was being held at swordpoint by her mother.

“Holy shit,” she whispered, not wanting to believe what she was seeing.

“Answer her question,” Emma Swan demanded tersely, holding the blade closer to her neck.

Beth glanced over at Jim to see how he was fairing. He looked more annoyed than scared. She knew him well enough that he was probably calculating the odds in his head. Jim seemed to sense that Beth was looking at him and glanced in her direction, giving her an irritated glare. She knew exactly what he wasn’t saying and could hear his annoyed voice in her mind nagging her, snapping “this is all your fault, Elizabeth.”

She made a small gesture with her hand, signaling for him to let her to take the lead on this. He rolled his eyes but gave a barely noticeable nod of his head in compliance. She nearly breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t exactly explain to him that her mother was a human lie detector that very few people were capable of hoodwinking; the only people who had that talent that Beth was aware of was herself, and her brothers Wes and Neddy.

“Answer her question now or I will cut your goddamn throat open,” Emma hissed.

“I’m Elizabeth Swann and my good friend here is Jack Sparrow. We mean you no harm,” Beth said calmly.

Emma let out a disbelieving laugh.

“You gotta be kidding me? You’re real too?” She exclaimed. “No way. I thought you both were created to promote a failing ride at Disney World! This is nonsense. I don’t believe this!”

“A what?” Jim looked perplexed. “What the bloody hell is she talking about, Beth?”

Beth didn’t answer, just mentally berated herself in her mind. She was a fucking idiot. Elizabeth Swann was her go-to alias and it generally worked out well when she used it, mainly because Pirates of the Caribbean was not something known in any realm aside from Storybrooke. She just wanted to hit her head repeatedly against a solid object, preferably a desk or a tree.

“Disney World?” Another female voice called from behind them. “What’s Disney World?”

Another woman came into view and Beth almost didn’t recognize her. It was Aurora Morris, except without the designer clothes and the crow’s feet around her eyes. She was dressed in a tattered purple gown with some quasi-jeweled crown on her head. She looked barely older than Beth herself. It was nearly as jarring as seeing her mother and grandmother so young.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Snow White replied, still looking at Beth and Jim with a quizzical look on her face. “But Elizabeth Swann and Jack Sparrow are famous where we come from…they’re kinda well-known pirates.”

“Pirates!” Mulan scoffed and there was some venom in her voice. “They could be working with him!”

“Don’t worry yourselves over that, loves. I was working alone aside from, well, Cora. I wouldn’t associate myself with these…amateurs,” a lilted voice called from behind them.

Beth closed her eyes. She recognized that voice anywhere. It was her father. She was really in the shitter.

“Fuck me,” she whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. This was an absolute nightmare.

“Like we’re going to believe you, Hook,” Snow White said with a roll of her eyes. “I mean first Captain Hook shows up, then Elizabeth Swann and Captain Jack Sparrow do too? Too much correlation to be coincidence. Not to mention they’re covered in blood. How do we know they didn’t help you and Cora with murdering all those innocent people.”

“I’ve never bloody heard of these two before nor have I ever worked with them. I assure you, Cora was more than capable of slaughtering those people on her own,” Hook said. Beth didn’t have to see his face to know he was rolling his eyes. “Whatever coincidence you have found is just that…coincidence…”

“And we’re supposed to believe that it’s a coincidence that one pirate was involved with Cora and two just randomly should up in the middle of nowhere? Really?” Emma scoffed. “What? You expect me to believe there’s just some pirate convention happening around here incidentally?”

“I don’t know what they’re doing here, Swan, but like I said, I don’t work with amateurs. You said you can detect lies. You should know I’m not lying.” 

“I’m not a bloody amateur,” Beth muttered under her breath.

“Maybe he is being honest, Emma. I mean, I don’t think they’re working together. Pirates aren’t necessarily known for their loyalty and he’s been rather quick to dismiss them,” Snow White said with a sigh.

Beth couldn’t help but be offended by her words.

“That’s a stereotype,” Beth snapped without thinking. “And it represents a very narrow view of the world. What you think that because you’re royals that you’re the epitome of goodness? I’ve met more loyal pirates and thieves than I’ve met loyal sovereigns. Do you even know the most pirates are former navy men? Do you know the most common reason they turn to piracy? Because being a Navy man doesn’t pay and they have mouths to feed.”

“Elizabeth, stop talking,” Jim hissed.

“No! I’m not going to stand here and listen to them being all high and mighty."

“Well, I’m not sure you noticed, but I have a sword to your throat so we can do as we please,” Emma said sardonically.

Snow White seemed to be considering Beth’s words however.

“And what about you? Why did you become a pirate? You certainly aren’t former navy…” Snow White questioned, giving her a considering look.

“Beth…” Jim hissed in warning.

She didn’t heed him however. Instead, she laughed harshly.

“I’m the worst kind of pirate there is,” she smirked. “I didn’t come from poverty or anything like that, it's more like I stepped into the family business and very much by choice. I was bored.”

“Well, I have to say this has to be one of the most entertaining times I’ve ever had while being tied up…well, tied up not in a fun way,” Hook mused from behind him.

Snow, Mulan and Emma rolled their eyes and Aurora looked scandalized. Jim made a choking noise, trying to hold back a bout of laughter and Beth was tempted to ask him what the hell he found so funny about her not-yet father making strange innuendos.

Taking advantage of Emma’s distracted state, Beth pushed her steel away from her neck with the use of her own sword. She put some distance between Emma and herself, twirling her own sword absently to keep herself at the ready. Immediately, Snow took her bow off her shoulder and pulled an arrow from her quiver, stringing her bow and taking aim at Beth’s head. Emma glared at Beth, pointing her blade at her again. Her stance was shoddy at best and her feet were uneven. It was obvious that the Emma Swan in front of her wasn’t that trained.

“My sword is bigger than yours,” Emma stated, glaring at her. “The odds aren’t in your favor.”

“Quite contrary, I’m more worried about the bow than the sword,” Beth said casually. “An untrained sword is more of a danger to the wielder than the opponent. You’re unbalanced and you’re holding that big ass sword with a tight two-hand grip, which kinda slows your movements…My saber, on the other hand, might be smaller but it allows for more maneuverability and a one-handed grip…The odds, well, they’re in my favor.”

“Beth, stop digging the hole,” Jim groaned.

“I’m not digging the hole,” Beth replied, rolling her eyes. She dropped her sword before taking her knives from her belt. “I'm actually surrendering while showing them who exactly they’re dealing with, J.”

“That has rarely turned out well for anyone,” Jim replied dryly.

“Yeah, well, as I said, I’m surrendering, dumb ass. I said we meant no harm and now I’m showing that it’s true. You should drop your sword too. And maybe take that dagger out of your boot as a gesture of goodwill,” she retorted.

“This is the dumbest thing we’ve ever done,” Jim muttered under his breath. Regardless, he let go of his sword and let it fall to the ground. He then looked down at Mulan and raised an eyebrow. “May I take the knife out of my boot, good lady?”

“I’m not a lady,” Mulan replied coldly.

“Well then,” he responded with a small chuckle and an arch of his brows. “May I take the knife out of my boot, good person?”

“You may, but don’t think I’m not watching you, pirate,” Mulan said, lowering his blade.

As he knelt to the ground, he glanced up at Beth expectantly. She merely arched her eyebrow at him while taking her own dagger out of her boot. Jim let out a loud huff and did the same. He tossed the short blade down on the ground with a bit more aggression than was necessary.

“Jesus Christ, do you have an arsenal or something?” Emma asked in disbelief.

“Gotta always be prepared,” Beth said absently.

“A real boy scout,” Emma snorted.

“Something like that…”

“Aurora, tie her hands,” Snow White commanded, nodding her head at Beth.

Aurora did not seem like she appreciated the command, but nonetheless grabbed the rope from somewhere behind them and appeared in front of Beth. She gave her a look of disdain before taking Beth’s hands together and began to loosely wrap the rope around her wrists.

“Do you seriously not know how to tie knots?” Emma scoffed. “She could get out of that easily.”

She pushed Aurora out of the way and began to roughly tie knots around Beth’s hands. Beth gritted her teeth as the rope bit into her skin.

“You could be a little bit gentler,” she hissed.

“And you could shut up."

Beth glanced down at her bound hands, wiggling her fingers experimentally. It was a good hold, but one that she could get out of it if she needed to, though it would require her to break her thumb…again.

“Mulan, do you think you can handle our two friends from the Caribbean?” Emma asked, pushing Beth forward.

“Yeah, I think I can handle them fine,” Mulan replied, sizing them up.

Jim and Beth shared a glance. The corner of Jim’s lips twitched and Beth knew he was holding back a particularly sarcastic remark. He looked down at his own bound wrists and Beth knew that he was currently mapping out all the weakness in the knots in his mind.

Mulan took the rope that bound their wrist, pulled at them roughly.

“And you…” Emma turned her attention from Beth and Jim back to Hook. “You’re going to be my problem. Don’t try anything stupid, Hook. You’re going to show us how to get the compass and you’re going to it without any funny business.”

The man who would one day Beth’s father licked his lips and offered his future wife a salacious grin. Beth had seen her father look at her mother in such a way before, but normally her mother returned it with a look of her own and would tell Beth and her brothers that they were “going upstairs for a nap and to not disturb them.” However, Emma wasn’t so moved by his leering this go around. In fact, she looked downright disgusted. She freed Hook, binding his hands in the same fashion as Beth’s.

“You’re pretty good at this, Swan,” Hook said casually, mischief in his eyes. “One might think you’ve had a bit of practice at this.”

Emma gave him an unimpressed look and pulled him forward roughly. Jim quietly snickered as he watched them. Beth nudged his foot with hers.

“What’s so funny?” she asked in a low voice, not wanting to be heard.

“It’s just…” Jim shook his head. “That’s…Killian Jones? They called him Hook so I’m assuming he is who I think he is…Because if so, this just explains so much about you. Like nearly every question I ever had about you has been answered in the last fifteen minutes.”

“Oh?” Beth arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I’ve always wondered where the attitude, the constant flirting and all the…I don’t even know what to call it…extra-ness came from? Circe wasn’t kidding when she said you’re him reborn. It’s honestly just like watching you in a male body. It’s a bit frightening and intriguing…I’m assuming he’s the reason you surrendered because you want to free him…”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Beth murmured.

Mulan jerked them forward and they were helpless to do anything but let themselves be awkwardly dragged.

“I gathered. You don’t surrender, Elizabeth. You’ve never surrendered in your goddamn life. Not even when you’re low in your coffers during a gamble. It’s just not in your nature to give up without a fight. What is it you always say? A man who doesn’t fight for what he wants deserves what he gets?”

“You’re not wrong. I do say that. A lot. But it’s more than that, Jim. I know exactly when and where we are. I’ve heard the story of what happens here my entire fucking life. It’s my family’s story,” she whispered, looking forward and watching her one-day mother drag her one-day father behind her like a dog.

“Okay, then don’t leave me in the dark here,” he responded, brows knitted together in puzzlement. “What’s going on? Where are we?”

“We’re thirty years in the past, Jim. In the Enchanted Forest just after the Evil Queen’s curse was broken. You were right…the man in front of us is…Killian Jones. The dark haired one in the gross pink? That’s Snow White. The blonde in the red? Emma Swan..."

Jim’s eyes went wide as the meaning of her words dawned on him. His entire face went pale.

“You mean they’re yo”- “Yes,” she cut him off. “They’re exactly who you think they are and, Jim, they literally just met. We’re at the very beginning and if what I know is correct, we’re going to the beanstalk.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! I struggled a bit. It’s been a trying week, ladies and gents. Anyway, it’s up and the next chapter might not be until Monday unfortunately. Anyway, thanks to welllpthisishappening, phthalo and cynmoon for being awesome and looking this over! Cheers! Questions and comments? Bug me @ distant-rose.tumblr.com/ask

“So those are your parents?” Jim whispered to her quietly as they trekked behind Mulan.

“Yes,” Beth answered tersely, not wanting to discuss the matter more than she had to.

“That’s your mother in the red? The blonde?”

Jim didn’t seem to understand that she wasn’t in the mood to have this conversation nor how dangerous it was. She didn’t want to think of what would happen if they were overheard. If Beth had felt like losing her balance, she would have attempted to kick him.

“Yes."

“And that’s Captain Hook? Your father?”

“I think this has already been established, Jim."

“And those two actually get married?” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her.

“In three and a half years’ time, yes.”

“And they’re true love?”

If her hands hadn’t been bound, she would have thrown them up in defeat. She honestly didn’t understand why he felt the need to reiterate all of this.

“Yes. Confirmed multiple times over the course of the thirty years, some in grizzly and disgusting ways. Or else I wouldn’t be magical or some shit.”

“And they actually produced four children? Really? Them?”

“Seriously what is the point of this line of questioning? You already know all of this!” she hissed.

“Huh.” After all of his questioning, his grunt was a bit anticlimactic.

Beth gave him a sour look. "Huh? That’s all you can say? Huh?”

“Well, yeah, it’s kinda hard to believe, but I can see it. I mean you look startlingly like your mother but with your father’s coloring...and perhaps a bit thinner...and a bit taller. I mean, the hair difference kinda throws it off and perhaps the cosmetics too, but I’m surprised they aren’t at least somewhat suspicious. The name that you threw up there doesn’t help matters. Emma Swan? Elizabeth Swann? Not your finest hour, love.”

“Fuck you, Jim,” she snapped at him, but it sounded more tired than pissed off.

He chuckled ruefully and this time they were overheard by Mulan who looked back at them to give them a dirty look.

“What’s so funny?” She asked, narrowing her eyes at them.

“Nothing,” Jim replied smoothly. “Just passing the time with a few light jokes, which my partner here doesn’t seem to appreciate.”

“That’s because you can’t tell a joke to save your life."

“Let’s keep the jokes to a minimum then,” Mulan replied unimpressed.

A silence fell between them as they kept hiking through the woods. It was a hassle to walk with her hands tied in front of her and Beth was almost embarrassed by the amount of times she nearly fell. She was used to walking across decks during the rockiest of seas and during harsh squalls, yet being pulled by her hands had her veering every which way like a drunk monkey.

She glanced over at Jim to see how he was faring and she was surprised to see that his shoulders were shaking in silent laughter. He looked horribly amused more than anything. Beth stared at him in disbelief.

“What the fuck is so funny?” she hissed quietly, not wanting to catch Mulan’s attention again.

“I’ve imagined meeting your parents a thousand ways, love, but this…I never could have foreseen this.”

Beth blinked in surprise. “You imagined meeting my parents?” 

Jim’s amusement immediately faded away and was replaced by an expression that Beth could only describe as hurt.

“We’ve been friends for nearly three years, Elizabeth, I would assume that would warrant at least meeting your parents at some point. I mean, you’ve met mine,” he replied with a small shrug.

“I’ve met Long John Silver,” Beth corrected, eyes cutting to his.

“And he’s the closest thing I have to a parent,” he responded defensively. “I certainly don’t remember Leland Hawkins, he died before I left the cradle. My mother died when I was at sea the first time with Silver when I was thirteen, so yeah, you’ve met my only living parent. I figured you would do the same courtesy since Will met them and all. I’ve known you longer than Will did.”

“Will was different though,” Beth said quietly.

“As in you were planning on settling down and having two-point-five kids with him,” he concluded. “I didn’t realize that you had your sights set on being a queen. I never pegged you as one for domesticity.”

Beth stopped in her tracks, completely shocked by his words. They cut through her as sharp as any knife and they hurt more than she ever imagined, especially coming from Jim who had always been her pillar even when she never asked him to be. Her halt in movement was ill-conceived venture however because she was almost immediately dragged forward by Mulan and sent crashing face first into the dirt. Beth coughed as she unwillingly ate grass, glaring up at Jim.

“What is your problem?” Mulan hissed, turning around.

“I tripped on a root,” she lied smoothly. “It’s hard to balance when your hands are in front of you.”

Mulan picked her up roughly, but made no move to help her aside from that. She merely gave her a cold look before she turned back to keep up pace with Aurora, Emma and Snow White.

“Next time, watch where you’re stepping,” she called over her shoulder.

“Beth…” Jim looked at her in concern.

“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” she replied, not looking at him. “You had no right to say that.”

“That doesn’t make it any less true,” Jim muttered under his breath and Beth was almost certain he hadn’t intended for her to hear that.

Silence fell between them and Beth took this time to study the man and woman ahead them who would someday be her parents. It was strange seeing them so young and so distant from one another. Beth knew logically that the Emma Swan and the Killian Jones of this timeframe were nothing more than strangers, but still it hurt. They were always a united front all of her life; there wasn’t a damn thing that they didn’t tackle together even if they disagreed. And if they weren’t united in action, more often than not, they were always in each other’s space. Beth couldn’t picture her parents without them touching each other in some shape or form; her mother had a habit of running her fingers against the shorthairs on his neck or rubbing her thumbs against his collarbone. Her father, on the other hand, had always favored tangling his wife’s hair between his fingers or playing with her hands. Even when they sat together, they touched, her mother enjoyed placing her feet in her father’s lap on the couch or hooking her leg around his at the dinner table. This Emma of this era was not nearly so tactile, trying to keep a large distance between her and Hook.

These people weren’t her parents. They would be someday, but right now, they were little more than strangers wearing their faces. The more Beth realized this, the more she wanted to leave.

“I don’t understand this…” she murmured aloud without thinking.

“What don’t you understand?” Jim asked quietly.

“Why would she send us here? To this time period? I don’t get it. It’s not like she’s a fucking Weeping Angel or something,” she muttered as a piece of rebellious hair fell in her face. She glared at it and wished nothing more than to be able to tuck it behind her ear but with her hands tied up, she had to resort to blowing at it like a toddler.

Jim was silent for a moment and Beth was almost surprised by it. Normally he liked to have an answer for everything, which was sometimes good and sometimes bad. It was almost fun to pick his brain because it seemed to work on an entirely different wavelength than hers. Yet, at the same time, he could be a horrible know-it-all.

“I have no bleeding idea what a Weeping Angel is, but I think her plan is self-annihilation…or at least that’s my best guess,” Jim said after a few minutes passed.

“What?”

“Self-annihilation. I’m assuming she sent you here because she knows you’re a goddamn bull in a tea shop and she expects you to wipe out your own existence, which is still a high possibility. One wrong move and that epic ass love story between your parents goes up in smoke. You die by your own hand, wipe yourself from existence and Ardeas lives.”

Beth closed her eyes, sighing heavily. Ardeas was the entire reason she was in the mess she was in. He had tried to assault her in order to get her cache of magic beans and she had responded by chaining him to a rock and dropping him at the bottom of the ocean while he screamed that he was immortal and she would regret this decision. Ardeas was not immortal, but she did come to regret the decision when his mother Circe had taken issue with her son’s death and had made it her mission to make Beth miserable. Considering that Will was dead and she was stuck thirty years in the past, it was fair to say that Circe was succeeding.

“It’s always what it comes down to isn’t it? That I killed him,” she said, licking her chapped lips.

“Pretty much."

“I suppose that you think I was wrong to do that…” It wouldn’t surprise her if Jim had disagreed with the decision, though he had never made his opinion on it plain before.

“Out of all the idiotic decisions you’ve made in your life, it’s the one I judge the least. He got what he deserved. What you did was justice."

“And what I’m doing now isn’t?” she asked in clarification, raising an eyebrow.

“Nope."

“Nope? That’s all you’re going to say? Just nope? No grand lecture on how you’re right and I’m wrong?” she questioned.

“It’s not my job to teach you ethics, Elizabeth,” he said impatiently. There was some frustration in his tone and it made Beth bristle. He made her feel like a naughty school child sometimes.

“No, it’s not,” she agreed with some of her own frustration. “You’re not my fucking father.”

Jim made a strangled noise. “The day that sentence ever comes true in any proverbial or literal form, I would kill myself.”

She tried to not to be offended by that.

“Better to kill yourself than to have a daughter like me?”

Jim shook his head in disbelief, letting out a humorless laugh. “Something like that.”

Another silence fell between them, this one more uncomfortable than the last. Every part of Beth wanted to scream, yell and cry a bit, but she could not. Such an outburst would do nothing for her. She needed to stay calm. She needed to be like Jim; calm, cool, collected and planning each move like she was playing mental chess. She hated chess. She had no patience for it. Maybe that was the problem.

“You said that we are at the beanstalk, what did you mean by that?” Jim said quietly, breaking the silence once more.

“Like I said this is my parents’ first meeting,” she replied tersely. “Their first adventure was them climbing the beanstalk to get a golden compass.”

“Elizabeth, I need to know more than that. We need to know more than that. We need to keep the original events as intact as possible if we’re going to survive this. You know that, right?”

Beth made a low noise in the back of her throat.

“Of course, I know that. I’m not a fucking moron, so stop treating me like one,” she snapped.

“I know you’re not a moron. Stop getting so offended all the time,” he replied tiredly. “In fact, you’re clever as hell when you want to be, but you’re impulsive and this is emotional for you. You’re thinking with your heart and not with your head. We need your head right now. So, what do you know about the beanstalk?”

“All I know is that Mom and Grandma Snow were trying to go back to Storybrooke because they landed here by accident, much like I did three years ago. Anyway, Dad met Mom, Mom didn’t trust Dad but he knew how to get to them back home with a golden compass at the top of a bean stalk. So, despite their differences, they climbed the beanstalk together and got the compass then Mom and Grandma Snow were able to go home. Dad ended up in Storybrooke somehow, but not with them. I don’t really remember. It was their go-to story whenever I had to do a school project with someone I didn’t like.”

“That’s…not entirely helpful,” 

“Well, that’s all I got for you. Sorry."

“I know, I know, it’s just…” he let out a small huff.

She knew just by the look on his face that if his hands hadn’t been tied in front of him that they would be running through his thick sandy colored hair. He had a tendency to do that when he was anxious and right now, Jim Hawkins was more than a little anxious.

“It’s just we’re screwed,” Beth finished for him with a sigh of her own.

“You said it, not me."

“You didn’t have to say it, you were practically telegraphing it. I know your faces, J. I know that you’re privately thinking we’re fucked whenever you scrunch your eyebrows together like that."

“Scrunch my eyebrows together?” he asked, looking bewildered. “I didn’t realize I did that.”

“Well, you do. Like this.” She furrowed her brows together purposely and set her lips into a deep frown, copying his expression. Jim’s eyebrows rose as he studied her and his mouth opened, making him look like a gaping fish.

“I do not look like that."

“You totally do,” she responded, trying to keep from snickering.

“If you two don’t shut up soon, we’re going to separate you,” Mulan called from in front of them, rearing back to glare at them.

“I feel like I’m in grade school again."

“They bound you and dragged you in grade school?” he asked, sounding entirely amused by the concept.

“No, but me and my friend Sylvie were constantly being yelled at to shut up,” she replied with a small chuckle.

“Ah. That I can believe,” he grinned. “You are a bit on the loquacious side, love.”

“Are you calling me a Chatty Kathy, Hawkins?”

“A chatty what?” He looked confused.

“That’s it!” Mulan fumed, stopping and turning around. She jerked the rope, causing both Beth and Jim to stumble a bit. “Emma! Snow! Stop, we’re doing a prisoner switch because these two can’t stop plotting together.”

“We weren’t plotting,” she responded with a roll of her eyes. “Believe me, neither of us can plot to save our lives. Our battle plans last like two seconds. We’re more the make it up as we go along type.”

“I honestly don’t care, you’re just annoying me,” Mulan responded with her own eye roll. “You’re definitely going up front. You’ve got a mouth on you and I don’t appreciate it.”

“Really?” Beth smirked. “Most people do.”

Jim groaned beside her. “You really couldn’t keep that one to yourself, could you?” 

“You know me too well."

“I’m so not dealing with this anymore,” Mulan growls before shoving her rope at Emma. “You deal with her.”

“You’re seriously making me deal with Captain Flirt and Little Miss Flirt as a collective?” Emma groaned. “They’re just going to be flirting the entire time and it’s going to be gross.”

“Trust me, you don’t have to worry about that with him,” Beth muttered under her breath.

“You wound me, Black Swan,” Hook grinned, leering at her.

“Black Swan? Where the fuck did you get Black Swan?” She asked with a raise of her eyebrows.

“Well, you’re Elizabeth Swann and she’s Emma Swan,” Hook said, tilting his head towards the blonde. “She’s the Gold Swan because of her gorgeous blonde locks and you’re the Black Swan because of your dark hair. Being between the two of you lovelies…well, that’s just every man’s fantasy.”

Beth pulled a face and looked to Jim for support, but found her companion was biting his lip to keep from busting a gut. She glared at him. Nothing about this situation was funny. It was gross, so gross that not even Game of Thrones would touch it. Or maybe they would. The jury was still out on that one.

“If you let me out of this bind, I will beat him for you."

“Tempting, but no,” Emma remarked. “We need him. You, on the other hand, are expendable so I would be on my best behavior.”

Beth sighed. She had the strong urge to scream again.

“Don’t worry, love, I’ll wear you down, both you and the other gorgeous Swan,” Hook smirked.

“Keep dreaming,” she replied with a roll of her eyes.

“Now that’s something you don’t have worry about."

She blanched at the implication behind his words, but said nothing. She didn’t want to add any more fuel to the fire. She couldn’t help but wonder how her father would react to see his younger self acting so aggressively flirtatious with his own daughter. Knowing him, he would probably be mortified and run himself through with his sword.

They moved forward again, this time with Beth walking next to Hook instead of Jim. She tried not to look at him, but she couldn’t help herself. It was so strange to see him look so young. Her father had always been a handsome man, but as long as Beth could remember her father had silver in hair, noticeable laugh lines and crow’s feet. Her father was a man that smiled with both his lips and his eyes and was full of warmth.

This man smirked but his eyes had a hardness to them that Beth had never experienced before. It made her feel cold. On top of that, she felt more like she was staring at shorter and skinnier version of her older brother than her father. She always knew that Harrison had an eerie resemblance to him, but she never really saw it until now. Though Harrison was not one for leather nor did he swagger, not like Hook. It was just a strange experience.

“You said you were a pirate,” Hook said after a moment.

“I am,” she confirmed, trying to keep her answers short.

He snorted in disbelief. 

“You don’t believe me?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

Hook smirked at him, his eyes slowly taking in her form. It made her skin crawl. No father should look at their daughter like that. Ever.

“Well, you look the part, but there’s more to it than that,” he replied, licking his lips. “I think you believe you’re a pirate, but you strike me as more as some rich noble’s spoiled daughter who is rebelling against Daddy in hopes he’ll pay attention to you.”

Her nostrils flared in response to that. “Is that what you think?”

“You’re too well-bred and too demanding to be anything else, love."

“You think I’m well-bred? My mother would heartily disagree with you,” she replied tersely. “And too demanding? You wouldn’t say that if I was a man.”

“If you were a man, I would say you’re an ass. Take it as a compliment, love. I like demanding women. They know what they want and they don’t keep you guessing.”

“If my hands weren’t bound, I would run you through. You know nothing.”

“No,” he agreed. “Not yet, but I’ll learn. You wear your emotions on your sleeve. Makes you a bit of an open book.”

Beth nearly stopped walking at his words. She turned and glared at him. “Fuck you."

“I’m delighted with the offer, love, but a man likes to be wooed."

Beth made a noise of frustration. She honestly couldn’t believe how much of an asshole he was. This infuriating man would someday be her father, the man who was patient and taught her how to fight, tucked her in at night with a gentle kiss and sometimes even braided her hair. She saw nothing of that man in this one. This one was just a disgusting lech.

“Given up already, love?” Hook taunted. “That doesn’t seem like you.”

“You don’t know me,” she replied snappishly.

“I’m starting to. Like I said, open book,” Hook replied easily. “Shall I prove it?”

“Something tells me that you’re going to anyway."

“Quite right,” he grinned. “Like I said, you’re wealthy. Lived well. Well-bred and used to people following your orders. You like being in charge, but you also crave danger and excitement. Hence the interest in piracy and your current…risky business. Though you’ve got some steel to you. You’re not a fragile flower or you would be complaining about the rope burns by now.”

Beth couldn’t help but chuckle a bit.

“What’s so funny?” Hook asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Steel,” she mused aloud without much thinking. “Dad says that too. He says that I was born with stars in my eyes, steel in my bones and the sea in my veins.”

“I’m guessing dear sweet Daddy is a merchant sailor?”

Beth couldn’t help but laugh, amusement dancing in her eyes. Merchant sailor? Beth couldn’t imagine the man in front of her nor her father being happy with that descriptor.

“No. Not at all,” she snickered. “My old man was a pirate. My mother could be considered noble though, I guess. But my old man would be insulted to be called that.”

Her own mother would have been insulted by the descriptor as well, but regardless of how she felt about, Emma Swan was technically a noble considering she was born a princess. Though, Beth was pretty sure her mother would punch someone in the face if they called her that.

“Hence the desire for piracy, then. I was right, a Daddy’s girl. A pirate absconding himself a noble lady. He must be the quite the legend,” Hook mused.

“He is in his own mind."

“Your father suffers from delusions of grandeur?”

“Some would say so…” she snickered, licking her own chapped lips as she smirked.

“As entertaining as this conversation has been,” Emma said dryly, turning back to look at him. “I need Hook.”

“I knew you would warm up to me, love,” he smirked, arching a rakish eyebrow. “How do you want me?”

Beth was used to her father flirting with her mother. Normally she gave as good as she got and her younger brother Neddy would pretend to gag, causing them all to laugh. However, this Emma Swan was unmoved and unimpressed. She didn’t smile, just huffed in impatience.

“Cut the crap,” Emma said shortly. “Are we going in the right direction or not? How far are we from the compass?”

“We’re going in the right direction, so don’t you worry, love,” Hook replied easily. “We are just a few hours walk.”

“A few hours walk. How much are we talking?”

“Judging by our pace, another five or six hours, give or take."

“Five or six hours? How the hell do you know where we’re going then!” she demanded, looking more and more irritated.

“Don’t insult me, Swan,” he replied with a scoff. “I’m a seafaring man. I know my sense of direction. The compass is north. And north is that way!”

Hook pointed in the direction in front of them with his bound hands.

“And how do you know that?” Emma hissed. “It’s not like you have a GPS.”

“GPS?” 

“He knows because every moron knows that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west,” Beth replied with a roll of her eyes. She gestured towards the sky with her head. “It’s late and the sun is in that direction. That’s west. He’s right, we’re going north.”

“I didn’t ask you,” Emma snapped.

“No, but that’s the answer nonetheless."

“We should make camp here for the night…” Snow White said, breaking the tension between the three of them. “Sun is setting in maybe an hour or so. Walking in the dark is a bad idea. Best to continue this tomorrow.”

“Here? Really?” Emma asked, raising her eyebrow at her mother.

“Why not? I mean, it’s not the best place to camp but it’s also not the worst.”

Emma let out a heavy sigh before handing the ropes off to Snow and pulling out her sword. She paused only to give Hook and Beth a dirty look.

“Watch them, I’ll make sure the area is secure and we haven’t been followed,” Emma commanded, scanning their surroundings and pressing her sword through the bushes.

“You think Cora’s following us?” Snow White questioned.

“Possibly. Probably not, but you never know, maybe Will Turner is,” Emma replied almost jokingly.

Beth stiffened at her words. She was an absolute idiot. She should have chosen a different name. She hadn’t been thinking about the Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner romance when she had made the Keira Knightly character her chosen alias. It had been in oversight of epic proportions.  

Emma immediately noticed her reaction and her joking demeanor grew more serious.

“So there’s a Will Turner then.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

At one point in Beth’s life, she had an excellent poker face. However, it appeared that was no longer the case. Another unwelcome change in her life since Will’s passing.

“Will Turner?” Snow questioned, brows furrowed.

“Will Turner,” Emma repeated, and it felt like another knife to her gut. “The epic trio slash love triangle of Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner in the movies. I wasn’t certain there was one, but her face says it all.”

Beth closed her eyes. She didn’t them open to know that Emma was gesturing to her. She swallowed sharply. If her skin felt like it had been crawling when Hook had looked at her, it now felt like it was running off her bones.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” Emma asked, nudging Beth’s shoulder with her blade.

“He’s not here."

“I find that hard to believe,” Emma snorted. “If your relationship is anything like the movies, he wouldn’t let you out of his sight.”

“That was true once upon a time. But that’s no longer possible.”

“Why?” 

“Because he’s dead,” she snapped. Despite her attempts to keep her composure, all the anger and all the pain came out.

The eye contact between them was long and uncomfortable especially when Beth wanted nothing more than to scream. Whatever Emma saw in her, Beth didn’t know, but she gave her a quiet stiff nod. She put her sword back in its sheath. Out of the corner of her eye, Beth could see Hook looking at her strangely. She straightened her back, making a point not to look at him or anyone. She couldn’t handle it right now. She felt like an exposed livewire, vulnerable and raw.

“If we’re going to stay here tonight, we’re going to need to secure them,” Emma said, gesturing to Hook, Beth and Jim. “Tie them to the tree or something.”

“I’ll take care of them,” Mulan said, jerking Jim forward with his rope. “I’ll secure him. Then the girl and then Hook, if Snow will assist.”

“I have no problem with that,” Snow replied, looking at Beth and Hook out of the corner of her eye distastefully.

Beth was used to her grandmother looking at her in disappointment or exasperation. They never really clicked. Snow’s idea of bonding was shopping for frilly dresses, having heartfelt conversations and talking about the various boys in her granddaughter's life. Beth, on the other hand, preferred talking about sword techniques, trying to climb up trees one-handed and out drinking her “cousins.” They loved each other, they just weren’t close. In all of her years, her grandmother had never looked at her like she was something distasteful like she was right now. It made her feel even more hollow.

“What can I do?” Aurora asked.

“Sit and be quiet,” Emma replied with little patience.

“But I want to help!” she insisted and the whiny tone in her voice gritted on Beth’s nerves.

“Then collect firewood,” Snow said in a cool and patient tone.

“Just collect firewood?” Aurora looked slightly offended with being given such a menial task.

“Aurora, just do it!" Emma snapped.

“Don’t talk to her like that!” Mulan hissed eyes flashing.

“We don’t have time to coddle her. We need to get settled so we get moving quicker. I want that compass and to get back to my son. Nothing else. I’m not here to play nice,” Emma replied, narrowing her eyes at Mulan.

“How much do you want to bet that we could take the lot of them, love?” Hook’s voice murmured in Beth’s ear.

She nearly jumped out of her skin. She didn’t realize he was that close to her. It was unnerving that he had managed to get this far into her personal space without her notice. For the first time during this entire insane experience, she felt genuinely wary of him.

“It’s three trained swords against one trained sword, a bowman and two unskilled women is good odds,” she muttered back. “But I’m not staging a break away. That’s not my game here.”

“We don’t need the navy man, love,” Hook whispered. “Just you and me. The princess is more of a burden than help to them. The brunette seems feisty but soft. The other Swan, while gorgeous, isn’t familiar with a sword as you cleverly pointed out earlier. The warrior is the tricky one, but we could manage.”

“In a hypothetical situation, sure. I’m not leaving him. I can’t leave him. He wouldn’t leave me. Not now. Not ever. Even though he should. And I’m not doing this. So, forget it.”

“What if I told you I could bring you to a treasure unlike your wildest dreams? A true giant’s horde, we’re talking. I think we could make quite the team, love. I think you’d find me a better and more exciting companion that big, tall and boring back there. What do you say?” 

Beth took a step back, glaring at him.

“I would say that you have no idea just how big my wildest dreams are,” she said firmly. “And no. It’s not happening, Hook. Besides, I thought you didn’t think I was a real pirate. What did you call me? A rich noble’s daughter rebelling against her father in hopes he would look at her?”

“Perhaps, I misjudged you."

“You could be misjudging me now,” she responded, turning away to watch Mulan tie up Jim. He wasn’t focused on his captor at all, but watching Beth and Hook warily.

“No…I don’t think so. Just answer me this…How did he die? Your Will?”

Beth sucked on her teeth at the question. If her hands hadn’t been tied, she would have punched him.

“Swann? How did he die?” Hook asked again, more insistent.

Beth let in a heavy breath, debating in her head whether or not she should answer him. His bound hands nudged at her side. He wouldn’t let himself be ignored. She hated him for it, but it was typical of her father. He refused to let her be if he knew she was upset. This man wasn’t her father though, not yet.

“He was killed. A spell meant for me killed him,” she monotonously.

“His killer?”

“She breathes…for now,” she whispered.

“You don’t want treasure. You want revenge,” he said softly, looking at her with sudden understanding. She wanted to hit him even more for it.

“I want justice."

“Sometimes they’re the same thing, love.”

Beth didn’t get a chance to respond as Mulan somehow materialized at her side and jerked her towards a tree adjacent from where Jim was situated. She winced slightly as she was pushed roughly against the tree.

“You think you would be a bit more thoughtful considering that we willingly surrendered,” she muttered under her breath.

“Maybe, but I don’t like you,” Mulan responded easily.

Beth rolled her eyes, but said nothing. She watched as Aurora carelessly tossed sticks into the middle of the camp. She nearly snorted. It reminded her of the time they went camping and Neddy pouted constantly at being handed small tasks because he wasn’t as “big” as the rest of them. The thought of Neddy made her yearn for home, her real home. She wanted her mother to run her fingers through her hair and unknot the tangles. She wanted her father to cuddle her and whisper a story that she had heard a million times before. She wanted Harrison playing his guitar and singing to her something off a Jimi Hendrix album and Wes to crack a snarky joke while Neddy placed a whoopee cushion under someone’s chair.

Most of all she wanted Will and his radiant smile, the one that took up his entire face and made the corners of his eyes crinkle. She wanted to hear that laugh of pure joy he made that one time after they swam in the ocean naked during a warm afternoon on his family’s private beach. She wanted his kisses that felt like a rip tide, the ones that took her by surprise and pulled her in before she even had the chance to comprehend how it happened.

But Will was gone and he wasn’t coming back.

And if she didn’t think fast, she wouldn’t get back to her family. Her real family. Not these people who were, but weren’t because those events hadn’t happened to them yet.

“Beth…” Jim called softly. “Are you okay?”

And for the first time in six months, Beth answered that question honestly. Whether it was because it was Jim, who had always been her rock and seen her at her lowest, who had asked or if she answered without truly thinking about it for once, she didn’t know. However, there was something both liberating and almost physically painful about it.

“No. I’m not.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! I struggled a bit. It’s been a trying week, ladies and gents, but thankfully that trouble has passed. I have never been so stressed out in my life. Anyway, I apologize for how fucking long this is. I got a little carried away with it, especially the Jim Hawkins’s Princess Storytime Theater that happens at the end. Anyway, thank you welpthisishappening for looking this over and being an all around class act. Without you, this wouldn’t be done. Hopefully I will have something for Danger Zone up tomorrow or Tuesday.

They started the day early. Mulan practically kicked Beth awake, nudging her bruised ribs harshly with the bottom of her boot. She couldn’t help but be annoyed with the rough treatment. She had treated hostile prisoners better than this bunch and she was supposed to be the amoral and vicious pirate. So much for the hospitality of heroes. The thought brought a bitter smile to her lips.

They separated her and Jim again, putting her once more with Hook. Beth couldn’t bring herself to look at him even as he tried to make small talk with her, obviously needling her for information. She knew what his game was. He was trying to assess her, a tactic was near identical to her own when it came to ferreting information. She didn't know why she was so surprised, after all, it had been her father who had taught her everything she knew about procuring information.

His voice, her father’s voice, not Hook’s - she couldn’t bear to think of them as the same person or else she would get sick - echoed in the back of her head. It chided her softly, reminding her that flies were easier to catch with honey, not vinegar. She nearly snorted. Hook laid the honey on a little thick for her taste and he was barking up the worst tree possible. Not that he knew that, of course.

“Have you given my proposal anymore thought, love?” Hook asked her in a quiet voice, eyes flickering towards Snow and Emma in order to ensure they weren’t listening in on their conversation.

“What proposal?” 

“You know what I’m talking about, don’t play dumb with me,” he replied, clearly unimpressed.

“I fail to see why I shouldn’t since you’re asking a dumb question,” she said, rolling her shoulders in irritation.

“You don’t play well with others, do you?”

Beth barked out a laugh, unable to help herself. “Oh, you have really no idea."

“I cannot help but wonder how the navy boy back there fell in love with such a cold and prickly lass,” he commented lightly.

The statement nearly caused Beth to trip over her feet. She stumbled a bit, finally turning to glare at him. Her jaw worked side to side in irritation, both at her lack of grace and at his incorrect observation.

“He’s not in love with me. He loves me, but he’s not in love with me. He was my mentor once upon a time when I was...younger and more naïve...happier times. I’m the little sister he never wanted."

“Well, I would never look at my sister the way he looks at you, darling, and I think you’re in denial. Perhaps you don’t want to see it because you lost your love, but navy boy back there would lick your boots if you ask."

Beth bit back a cutting reply about his less than appropriate behavior with her. She wanted to scream in his face that she was his daughter, but there was no telling what would happen to the space-time continuum if he knew who she was. This situation was just a bunch of wibbly-wobbly time-wimey tomfuckery.

She nearly laughed at the thought. Neddy would have appreciated the Doctor Who reference.

All amusement faded as she thought of her youngest brother. She had missed his seventeenth birthday. A part of her wondered how much he had grown in her absence and if he had decided on which college to play baseball for. She might never know. She shook her head, banishing the depressing line of her thoughts.

“Why do you call him that? Navy boy?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Because that’s what he is. He might have left, but it leaves a mark behind. A holier-than-thou attitude and a sense of superiority. It’s fairly obvious."

“Navy recognizes navy then, huh?” Beth spoke without thinking.

Hook stiffened, almost tripping himself. She nearly cracked a grin. There was something thrilling in seeing him lose composure.

“You think I’m navy?” 

“You might have left, but it leaves a mark behind. You know, a sense of superiority or something other. It’s fairly obvious,” she replied, practically repeating his words back at him.

Hook stared at her, jaw clenching. She could see the muscles jump in irritation, but he didn’t say anything. Shockingly enough, he went quiet and focused on the path ahead of them.

It took them nearly two hours to reach the end of the wood and Beth nearly gasped as she saw the faint outline of the legendary beanstalk beginning to come into view. Her eyes trained on it, even from the distance it looked imposing.

The party stopped at the base of the beanstalk, drinking in the sight before them. Emma’s expression looked more grim than usual and Beth could see some apprehension settling in her future mother’s eyes.

“It’s a little freakier than I remember from the story,” Emma commented, trying to seem nonchalant and failing spectacularly.

“That’s a sentiment I can agree with,” Beth replied without thinking, eyes still trained on the beanstalk and missing the glare that Emma sent her way.

It was massive and Beth couldn’t believe that her parents were about to climb the damn thing. One wrong move and one of them would fall, a steep drop and sudden stop. The thought nearly made her cringe.

“Reminds me of death,” Mulan said apprehensively.

Behind her, Jim snorted. All of them turned to look at him, but he paid them no mind. He merely stared up at the beanstalk with a skeptical expression.

“If that reminds you of death, you haven’t been around it much,” he replied when he realized he had everyone’s attention. “Death is quite messy, there’s pain, screaming and, not to mention, shitting yourself. This is…perilous to say the least but I would say a fall from that thing is cleaner than most deaths at sea.”

Mulan glared at him while Hook shrugged, giving Jim another appraising look.

“He’s not wrong."

“That’s encouraging,” Snow commented with a deep frown. There was a bit of a sarcastic edge to her tone that caught Beth by surprise. She knew there was a hidden strength to her grandmother, something that lurked behind the surface, but it was something else to see that steel rise to the surface.

“Well,” Hook drawled, eyes sweeping over all of them. “Your compass awaits. Shall we?”

They advanced forward. Emma pulled a perplexed face as she glanced back at the beanstalk. If Beth recalled correctly, this was one of her first trips to the Enchanted Forest. It must have been disorienting to her. Beth recalled her own maiden voyage to a realm outside Storybrooke, how alone and unprepared she had been; a nineteen-year-old with nothing but her wits and the clothes on her back. It made her a bit more sympathetic.

“Wait…What about the beans? If these beans…create…portals, why not just pick one and go home? Why the compass?” Emma asked, bringing up the topic of an earlier conversation held between the camp last night.

The question made Beth’s ears burn and brought the little packet of beans in her boot back to her attention. She had at least ten beans on her person. A part of her wanted to give them the beans to curry some favor from the group, but that would go against the timeline. Her parents’ first adventure would be erased if she just handed over them.

“Because there aren’t any more beans,” Hook replied. “Whatever story you think you know, my dear, is most certainly wrong.”

Beth and Jim immediately shared an amused look. He bit his lip to keep from laughing and gave her boot a pointed look while she nudged her head towards his coat pocket where she knew his beans were housed. Despite the fact both of them were tied up and being held prisoner, they couldn’t help but find the situation humorous.

“There was a guy named Jack…and a cow…and something about an evil giant with a treasure and a golden goose? Or harp?” Emma replied with a frown, looking as if she were wracking her brains for more details of the obscure tale.

Jim couldn’t hold it back any longer. He let out a loud laugh, causing Emma, Snow White, Mulan and Aurora to glare at him. He wasn’t fazed by this however and looked as if he were attempting to hold back his gut.

“A golden goose?” He repeated, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Who told you that tale, love? The local drunk?”

Beth hip-checked him, scowling in disapproval. They were supposed to be cooperating, not antagonizing the past versions of her family. She didn’t want this to break into a fight where something could happen and jeopardize the future.

“That does sound like quite the tale,” Hook drawled, bringing everyone’s attention away from Jim and back to him. “But the truth’s a bit more gruesome. The giants grew the beans, but rather than use them for good, they used them to plunder all the lands. Jack was a man who fought a terrible war, defeating all but one of the evil giants. The beans were destroyed by the giants as they died. If they couldn’t have their magic, then nobody could. It’s really very bad form.”

As Hook spook, Jim nudged Beth’s boot with his own to get her attention. When she glanced towards him, he tilted his head towards Hook and rose his eyebrows significantly while smirking at her. Beth rolled her eyes, scowling at bit. She knew what he was silently alluding to; the fact that Beth had a habit of mentioning form, just as Hook had done. She had a feeling if they ever got back to their appropriate time period, she was never going to hear the end of how similar she was to her father.

“Evil giants who made magic portal beans?” Emma blinked incredulously. “Why doesn’t anyone just go up and grow some more?”

“Because one giant survived…the strongest and most terrible of them all,” Hook replied. “And we’ll have to get past him to”- “The magic compass,” Snow White cut him off.

“Indeed,” Hook nodded. “The treasure remains, and amongst it is the compass. Now it will guide us to your land. Cora has the means to open a portal with the wardrobe ashes, but she can’t find your land without the compass. Once we get the ashes from her, we’re on our way.”

Jim turned to Beth mouthing “wardrobe ashes” and giving her inquisitive look. She shrugged her shoulders at him, knowing that he was wondering what the hell they were talking about. Beth had no idea what the wardrobe ashes were either, she had always been a little fuzzy on how the beginning of the beanstalk story went but what she did know is that the wardrobe ashes were means for the group to get back Storybrooke.

Beth was more interested in who Cora was. The name had been mentioned a few times now, but she had no idea who the woman was aside from a formidable enemy. The name had never been mentioned before in the story to Beth’s knowledge and it bothered her. She kept wracking her brain for any knowledge on a person named Cora and all she got was nothing.

Mulan narrowed her eyes at Hook, still suspicious. Snow also looked very unimpressed with Hook’s explanation of everything.

“How do you know you’re not just using to get the compass for Cora?” Mulan asked, pursing her lips.

Hook licked his lips, glancing away for a moment before replying. “Because you lot are far safer company. All I need is a ride back. I’ll swear allegiance to whomever gets me there first.”

Beth practically bristled at the cavalier tone behind his words. He didn’t care how things were done as long as he accomplished his mission whether by hook or by crook. It left a nasty feeling in her stomach to know that the man who had instilled a great sense of honor and good form in his children had once been so disregarding of those teachings.

“And what about them?” Mulan asked, gesturing to Beth and Jim.

“As previously stated, the Black Swan and her Navy have nothing to do with me. I have no allegiance with them. You can do what you will with them…” Hook replied airily, meeting Beth’s eyes.

She squared her shoulders in response, clenching her jaw. She didn’t want to give Hook the satisfaction of seeing her rattled.

“And what should we do with them?” Aurora asked, voicing the question that had been on everyone’s mind.

“I’m not convinced that they’re not spies for Cora making sure that Hook completes his mission,” Mulan replied, crossing her arms in front of her chest and glaring at them.

“I, honest to the gods, don’t know who the fuck Cora is,” Beth replied, pursing her lips.

She received four incredulous looks in response.

“That’s exactly what a spy of Cora’s would say,” Aurora snapped in response.

“Or exactly what a person who has no idea fucking what’s going on say,” Beth responded with a shrug.

“You cannot be so oblivious that you’ve never heard of the Queen of Hearts,” Mulan replied, narrowing her eyes.

“I guess I am just that oblivious. Because the last time I checked, the Queen of Hearts was a playing card.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Beth saw a small smile tug at the corners of Emma’s lips. At least someone was warming up to her.

“She’s telling the truth,” Emma said, brushing her hair behind her ear.

“Really? And we should just take your word for it?” Mulan questioned.

“You did with Hook so I fail to see why you shouldn’t trust me with the Kiera Knightly wannabe and her decidedly not Johnny Depp accomplice."

“Johnny who?” Jim frowned, looking at Beth for clarification of what she was talking about.

Beth didn’t respond, a little offended by the fact that her future mother had just called her Kiera Knightly wannabe. That implied that Beth didn’t have a chest, which she did. Granted, she wasn’t the most voluptuous woman in the world, but at least you didn’t have to paint cleavage on her. She bit back a snappy reply. She wasn’t supposed to get the reference after all.

“We should just detain them for now,” Snow said with a sense of finality. “Tie them to the trees again while we climb the beanstalk with Hook. They’ll be less of a hassle that way.”

“Or you could just let us go and we’ll be on our merry way. We want nothing to do with your business. We have our own messes to deal with, thank you very much,” Jim drawled, raising his eyebrows.

“That’s not happening,” Mulan snapped.

“I fail to see what that’s such an unreasonable option. We’ve been nothing but compliant with you despite your less than favorable treatment. I’ve treated imprisoned hostile enemies better than you’ve treated us. Did they not teach you the proper rules of engagement and imprisonment in basic training in your realm? Because, if we’re being frank, neither I nor my lovely companion have done anything to warrant arrest,” he asked, losing his patience.

“Save your breath, J,” Beth sighed. “You’re doing what we call in my realm, shouting at deaf ears.”

“Well, I gotta give him one thing, he’s more articulate than Johnny Depp,” Emma said after a moment.

“Toddlers are more coherent than Johnny Depp,” Snow replied. “Though, they are right. Maybe we should let him go. They don’t know Cora and they have been honest so far.”

“No offense, Snow,” Mulan responded with frown. “But just because your daughter says they aren’t lying that doesn’t mean that they aren’t. I’m not convinced they’re not dangerous.”

“Oh, we are dangerous,” Beth replied casually. “Just not to you. We have no quarrel with you. We just want to get the fuck outta here and go back to where we belong.”

“And where would that be?” Mulan asked, arching a brow.

“None of your fucking business."

“You see, this is why we leave the negotiations to me,” Jim sighed. “You’re just antagonizing them more.”

“It hardly matters since they have no plans to let us go,” she replied with a snort. “I wish they would just kill us and get it over with. Cowards.”

“No one is killing anyone,” Snow sighed impatiently.

“Yeah, I’ll believe that when I become the Queen of Maldovia,” Beth bit back sarcastically.

“I have been meaning to ask, do you know any royalty in Maldovia?” Jim asked with an arched eyebrow.

“I don’t. I think they have a missing prince though,” Beth replied with a shrug.

“I just thought I would ask since you seem to bump a lot of elbows with royalty,” Jim said, shrugging.

“I don’t bump that many elbows."

“Well, you did almost marry a prince."

“Almost is the key word. Thank you once again for bringing up my dead boyfriend,” Beth replied sarcastically.

“Your boyfriend was a prince? What prince wants to get involved with you? You’re nothing more than a filthy pirate.” Aurora asked, seeming to be very confused.

“I would like the record to reflect that I bathe quite frequently and probably smell a hell of lot better than you,” she drawled. “As for why a prince would want to get involved with a pirate…I hate to break this to you, love, but we, pirates, are a bit of hot commodity. Royalty seems to love falling in our beds, princes and princesses alike. Everyone seems to want a taste.”

Aurora looked scandalized and it almost made being tied up worth it to Beth.

“As riveting as this conversation is, perhaps we can get back on track,” Hook said after a moment. “Amateur pirates should not be our concern at the moment. It should be the compass. And since, I failed to mention it before I will tell you now, the giant enchanted the beanstalk to repel intruders.”

Emma made an impatient noise.

“Alright, so how do we get up there?” she snapped.

“I’ve got a counter spell from Cora, if you’d be so kind,” Hook replied lightly, gesturing downwards at his bound hands with his head.

Emma and Snow shared a look. Emma nodded towards Hook while Snow let out an impatient huff. She reluctantly walked towards Hook and began roughly undoing his binds. The scowl on her face made it clear how she felt about the situation.

When she was finished, Hook leaned forward to meet Snow’s eyes. A smirk grew across his lips as he winked at her.

“Thank you, milady."

Snow turned to give Emma an unimpressed look, which Hook ignored in favor of divesting himself from his rags, revealing a complete black leather ensemble not unlike Jim’s own outfit. Beth nearly let out a burst of laughter and nudged Jim’s side, smirking. The taller pirate merely rolled his eyes.

Hook pulled back his sleeve to show a leather cuff around his wrist. It looked like an ordinary wristband except it was surrounded with an unnatural gold glow.

“I’ve got one more of these. Cora was to accompany me,” he explained as he pulled the other cuff out of his pocket and twirled it between his fingers, smirking at them. “So, which one of you four lovelies shall take her place? Hmm? Go on. Fight it out. Don’t be afraid to, you know, really get into it.”

“You know what, I actually kinda want them to break out into a fight,” Beth sighed to Jim. “It would make this more interesting. I would put money on Emma.”

“Of course, you would, you’re biased. I have to say Mulan has more fighting experience and more meanness on her side. She would wreck.”

“I respect that. Still going with Emma. Gotta root for the home team, you know. Swans sticking with Swans and all that nonsense.”

“We’re not fighting,” Mulan said flatly, glaring at Jim and Beth. “You guys are going to have some quality time with some trees while we sort this out.”

Mulan pulled their ropes forward and tied the ends of them together around a decently sized pine tree. Beth and Jim shared a look. They hadn’t expected this kind of sloppiness from the warrior of the bunch. Immediately, Beth scanned their surroundings, hoping to find a sharp stick that she could pick up with her feet and use to loosen the binds around her hands.

Mulan left them be without so much of a glance, going back to the main group and immediately starting an argument with Snow.

“All due respect,” Mulan said, voice raising. “I’m the best-equipped to go. How many wars have you been through?”

Snow looked positively offended by the question. “My fair share!:

“This is almost entertaining,” Jim replied, watching them.

“Yes, kinda makes you wish you had popcorn,” Beth sighed, still looking for a stick.

“Popcorn?” Jim questioned.

“It’s a popular treat to consume while watching entertainment in my realm. My mother smothers it with sugar though. It’s pretty fucking gross. I prefer just a pinch of salt.”

“It should be me!" Aurora said suddenly.

Immediately Beth and Jim shared a look and burst into laughter. Beth leaned her head against Jim’s shoulder, her body shaking with the force of her mirth. The group of women turned to look at them, glaring.

“What’s so funny?” Aurora asked defensively.

“You? Climbing that monster? No way. You wouldn’t make past a few good meters. You’d break a nail then you’re neck,” Beth replied. “That’s what so funny. Face it, Princess, you’re a pretty girl, not a bruiser.”

“You!” Mulan hissed. “Stop talking.”

“Sorry, I’m just calling them as I see them."

“She’s trying to hurt your feelings,” Mulan said softly, squeezing her shoulder. “But she’s right. You haven’t fought in a battle.”

“And this is about us getting home to our loved ones,” Snow cut in. “Why would you even…”

“Because I have no loved ones,” Aurora replied, almost beseechingly. “I fail, you can see go on.”

Emma looked positively done with everything and stepped forward impatiently.

“It’s me,” she said and Beth recognized the tone she used. It was her sheriff’s voice, the one she used when she had made a final decision and no one, not even her husband, would be able to change her mind. “I’m going and I’m not gonna fail.”

“That’s your captain voice,” Jim murmured quietly to Beth.

“No,” Beth said with a shake of her head. “It’s not. It’s the sheriff voice. Or as it should be more aptly named the 'don’t fuck with Emma Swan' voice. As you can see, that voice came way before mine did.”

“So, you learned it from her."

“Yeah…I guess I did."

Both of them turn their attention back to the main group where Snow was looking doubtfully at Emma while Emma was doing her best to ignore her mother. There was a tension between them that Beth had never seen before.

“You’re new here..” Snow started.

“It’s about getting back to Henry,” Emma said determinedly, cutting her off. “I don’t care what I have to face. You’re not gonna argue with me?”

“Would it do me any good?” 

Beth looked away from them. It reminded her of one of her many interactions with her grandmother, especially one in particular - the prom fiasco. Her grandmother had been heartbroken when she found out her granddaughter didn't bought a ticket and had attempted to guilt trip her for months. Beth had put her foot down, declaring she would rather go camping than wear a dress and get felt up by some piss-ant with an erection while listening to a band that would no doubt suck. Snow had been given her a look of disappointment and not talking to her granddaughter for nearly two days.

“No,” Emma said with an air of finality. She then turned to Mulan. “Anything in that bag that’s gonna help me with a giant?”

“Or Hook?” Mulan asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Hey!” The man in question shouted, mildly offended.

“Come with me,” Mulan said, pulling Emma away from the group and away from Jim and Beth’s earshot.

They spoke for a while and Mulan handed Emma something from her bag. There were serious furrows to both of their brows and whatever they were discussing it looked like it was a grim conversation. Hook was getting impatient.

“Ladies,” he called. “In this world, we are slaves to time. And ours is running out. In other words, tick-tock.”

Emma and Mulan both scowled. Emma rolled her eyes, approaching Hook with a down set frown. Where Emma was clearly displeased, Hook looked positively delighted.

“I was hoping it’d be you,” Hook smirked. “My favorite of the Swans.”

Emma rolled her eyes, letting out a quiet huff. "Just get on with it.”

Hook placed her hand on his shoulder gently, giving it a good pat.

“That’s a good girl,” he said with a smile and wink, placing the magical cuff on her. Emma blanched, looking away from him. “This will allow you to climb. There are other dangers. Thankfully, you’ve got me to protect you.”

Emma gave him a look that clearly stated that she didn’t need him to protect her and if he got another inch closer to her, she was going to punch his lights out. Her jaw clenched and it was very clear that she was biting back a rather nasty reply. Hook ignored it in favor of gesturing towards his hand.

“I can’t climb one-handed, can I?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

Emma let out a deep sigh, which Beth knew signaled that he was really trying her patience. It was the noise she usually made when she had come home and found the house trashed from yet another round of the Wes versus Beth versus Neddy prank wars.

Emma reached into her bag and pulled out the hook. She handed it over to Hook, glaring at him.

“Don’t think I’m taking my eyes off you for second,” she snapped.

“I would despair if you did,” Hook replied flirtatiously as he placed the hook into his brace in a smooth motion. It was a near thoughtless movement that Beth knew he had perfected over hundreds of years. She wondered if her present company had an inkling of how old the man really was.

“I still can’t believe those two are your parents,” Jim chuckled lightly.

“Believe it. It’s certainly not love at first sight, but that shit rarely happens.”

“I keep trying to figure out which one you take after more. I mean your features are without a doubt your mothers, but your demeanor…you might hate me for saying this, but you have a lot of Hook in you…a lot…And I said before, it's like watching a male version of you.”

Once upon a time Beth would have taken that as a compliment, however, considering the last twenty-four hours, it felt like a slap in the face. She didn’t want to be Hook, not anymore. A small part of her still wanted to be Killian Jones, the honorable version of this man who had sired her, still, but daydreams of being Captain Hook, the aimless and lecherous turn-coating pirate, turned sour.

“Fuck you, Jim.”

A silence fell between them as Beth watched her future parents starting to scale up the beanstalk. Her mother stumbled a few times with her footing, nearly causing Beth’s anxiety to spike, but she didn’t fall. Her eyes trained on both of their forms until they disappeared from sight.

“What are we going to do, Beth?” Jim asked quietly after a long moment.

“I don’t know,” she sighed. She had strong urge to rake her hair away from her face, but her hands were still bound. She could barely feel her fingers at this point. Again, she really wanted to punch Mulan in the face.

“We need to get our asses out of here before we mess with the timeline any more than we have already."

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, we might need to stick around to preserve it.”

“Your parents are perfectly capable of this beanstalk nonsense without us. They did it without us before. They can do it again. Or for the first time or whatever, this time travel business is a pain. But this…this is beyond dangerous and you’re emotionally compromised, not that this is new.”

“I’m not emotionally compromised. I’m trying to preserve the timeline.”

“That’s horseshit and you know it,” he snapped. “You’re the textbook definition of emotionally compromised. They’re your parents and it’s understandable that you are. Elizabeth, love, we need to get the fuck out of here. We need to find someone with enough juice and enough magical knowledge to send us back.”

“Oh, and who do you suppose can do that for us?” 

“I don’t know, but just sitting around here like a bunch of assholes isn’t going to help.”

“What are you two talking about?” Mulan asked as she, Snow White and Aurora approached them.

Jim cursed under his breath, leaning his forehead against Beth’s shoulder and letting out a low frustrated groan against her neck. The move caused an involuntary spasm to run through her body and she jolted a bit.

“Just doing what pirates do best,” she replied, ignoring Jim.

“Stealing?” Aurora asked, lifting her brows. “You must be quite an accomplished thief to be able to steal without using your hands.”

“There’s a lot of things I can do without my hands,” she replied, unable to hold back a smirk and causing all three women to blanch. “But no, Princess. We’re just passing the time by telling each other stories. It’s a talent to be able to tell a story, one valued almost more than gold when you’re far out at sea and losing your mind.”

“What kind of story are you telling?” Snow asked, not believing them for a second.

“The best one I know,” Jim replied. “One about the most stubborn ass woman in the history of the realms. It’s not well-known, at least not yet. It might be…someday. At least it should be,” Jim replied.

“Care to share?” Mulan asked, arching an eyebrow.

“You really want to listen to a bunch of pirate stories?” Beth asked, raising her own brows.

“It’s not like we have anything better to do than wait for Emma and Hook to come back,” Mulan replied, sitting down and crossing her arms in front of her chest. “So, share, unless, of course, you’re lying.”

“Not lying,” Jim replied easily. “But you’re going to want to settle in because this one…well, it’s a long one, but it’s worth it. Like I said, it’s my favorite story.”

Snow and Aurora sat near Mulan, looking at them expectantly. Jim turned to Beth.

“Do you want to tell this one, or should I?” 

“You should. You’re the better story teller.”

The truth was that Beth had no idea what story Jim was talking about. Stories were commonly told around pirates, but Beth and Jim had never actually sat down and just shared stories. They never had the time. Their lives had been crisis after crisis with very little breathing room in between.

Jim licked his lips before he began.

“Once upon a time, there was a goddamn queen,” he started. “And not just any queen. Oh no, this one was not your run of the mill queen. She was a pirate queen.”

As he spoke, his eyes met Beth’s. A part of her wanted to gape at him, but instead she settled for raising an eyebrow.

“Really?” She asked in belief.

“Really, really."

“You’re absurd."

“Hey, now,” he said, sounding slightly offended. “This is a good story, so just shut up and listen.”

She rolled her eyes, shaking her head. She knew exactly where he was going with this now. A part of her wondered if by telling this story, he would do some damage to the timeline, but then again, it wasn’t as if Beth had shared this with her grandmother.

“Now for some background on our queen,” Jim said, starting up his story again. “Our queen wasn’t really a queen. She was royalty, but she never wore queen as title. Her mother had been the crown princess of a distant realm and her father…he was a pirate. Now, the unlikely pair had fallen in love and married. They had a multitude of children, but only one daughter – our lovely heroine. She carried herself as all queens do, so she was a queen in all but name. The little queen’s brothers were scholars of magic and men of honor, but our queen was born with sea water in her veins and all she wanted was be on the water. You see, most children feed on breastmilk, but our queen was nursed on stories of open ocean, dangers untold, hardships unnumbered, of exotic lands and treasures that only seemed possible in the imagination. Most little girls would have died to be our little queen, but our little queen wanted nothing more than to be a pirate.”

Jim paused his story, licking his lips and looking back at Beth.

“Am I telling this right?” he asked.

Beth, who was staring at the ground, sighed. “As well as anyone, I guess.”

“Why are you asking her?” Aurora frowned.

“Because she’s the one I heard the story from. In fact, she’s the one who should be telling it.'

She shook her head. “I would rather not, thank you.”

“Suit yourself,” Jim sighed. “As I was saying, the little queen wanted to be a pirate, but in her home realm, she was sheltered away by her parents. They were amused by her ambition, but never took it seriously. While everyone lived comfortably in the castle, our little queen was getting stir crazy. So, one night, she crept from beyond the castle walls and went into the village to blow off some steam…to get away for a while. And while she was out and about, she wished for adventure in a distant land, far away from the castle. She must have wished on an ill-fated star because on that spot where she made the wish, she was whisked away. She sent to a distant realm in the middle of nowhere with no supplies, no coin or anything, but the clothes on her back. Her family knew not what happened to her, only that she disappeared into thin air.”

“That’s horrible,” Snow commented, looking pained. “Her poor family. It’s an awful thing to not know where your child is.”

“Or to know that you are causing them to worry and you can’t contact them,” Mulan said with a faraway look in her eye.

Beth looked at them both with sad eyes and made a small indiscernible nod. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a sharp looking rock. It looked almost like an arrowhead. She stretched out, feigning discomfort as her fingers brushed against it.

“Anyway,” Jim started up again. “Our little queen was a pretty resourceful lass. Too clever by half some would say. She knew she was in an unknown realm and she found a road. She followed it to the nearest town in order to gather information and income. Her father had raise her indulgently, teaching her how to cheat at cards and she knew if she could find a tavern, she could wipe any table of its gold with her charm and her…wits.”

“How old was she?” Aurora asked suddenly.

“I’m not quite sure,” Jim admitted, turning to Beth. “Do you know?”

“About nineteen or twenty,” Beth said with a sigh before nodding her head towards Aurora. “Not much younger than her.”

“That’s still quite young,” Snow said softly.

“If you keep interrupting me, you’re never going to hear it all,” Jim said with a shake of his head.

Aurora looked sheepish. “Sorry.”

“Anyway, the town she found was a port town known as a safe haven for pirates. Our little queen, of course, had no knowledge of this. As you’re aware, we pirates are a fickle lot, a mixed barrel, if you will. You will find someone as noble as meself or you can sometime cold blooded and cut throat like Blackbeard. Naturally, because this is a story, our queen wandered into the worst tavern imaginable and went right up to the table of the worst pirate imaginable. A man of ill repute with a known bad nature with women,” Jim said, looking over at Beth with a concerned gaze.

She didn’t look back at him, more focused on the rock on her hands and slowly placing it between the rope and her wrists. She was about to get some serious friction burns, but it would be worth it.

“He doesn’t hurt her, does he?” Aurora asked, sounding concerned.

Jim ignored the question. “As she figured, our queen ran that table down and took all of their gold. She would have made her old man proud with her work. The ill repute man in question took issue with it and he and his men attempted to attack her in retaliation. Luckily for our queen, there was a man of noble character there willing to rescue her.”

Beth looked up at this and snorted loudly.

“A man of noble character?” she repeated. “We’re laying it on thick now.”

Jim looked like he was biting back a laugh.

“What is it with this audience and interrupting?” he asked teasingly. “You’re one of the worst crowds I’ve ever told a story too. And if you have a problem with how I’m telling it, you can tell it yourself, love.”

“No,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. “You were doing fine up until the man of noble character bullshit. He’s a pirate too, you know, and you’re talking to a non-pirate crowd. Also, you’re biased.”

“I am,” he admitted. “Towards the queen. Now, going to back to the man of noble character, yes, Elizabeth, our man of noble character was a pirate. He used to be an inn keeper’s boy, but he had discovered a treasure map as a child and was whisked away from his home. On that journey, he discovered a treasure like no other and pirates so ruthless that they would make your hair curl. You see, the horde of made of treasures of every sort from gold to magical items powerful beyond the imagination.”

Snow frowned at the description.

“Sounds like Treasure Island,” she commented. “My fourth graders read that.”

“What’s Treasure Island?” Mulan asked.

“Just a story,” Snow said with a shrug.

Beth opened her mouth to comment, but immediately closed it. She looked back at Jim, but he was focused on his crowd of three and giving them a pointed look.

“As I was saying, the boy ended up being one of eight survivors on that trip and grew to hate pirates. He vowed to join the navy when he was grown so he could hunt them down. That is, until he found out the navy was no better and was cast out when he protested the cruel actions of his captain. He was left to die until he was saved by an old pirate he knew from his boyhood and he joined his crew. But by the time our leading man met our queen, he had been on his own or a year, captaining his own ship, which had been given as a gift from the older pirate.”

“That’s uncharacteristically generous for a pirate,” Snow commented.

“The old pirate thought of the man as his son since he had no living children with his wife. He felt the need to provide, I guess. Not all pirates are selfish, milady. As Elizabeth said, that’s a stereotype,” he replied gently. “Anyway, so the man saw the little queen was in trouble and rescued her with the help of his crew. Not that she was grateful, as she was a prideful thing. You know how royals get.”

Snow and Aurora both glared at Jim but said nothing. Beth merely rolled her eyes and continued her task of rubbing the rock against the binds.

“The man of noble character felt bad for the little queen when she told him what happened to her. She had wanted adventure, but not like this, unprepared with no supplies in a world unknown. She wanted to go home and because he was of noble character, he resolved to help her. As previously mentioned, the man had known of a treasure beyond the imagination and part of that treasure was one of the last stashes of magical beans. His price was her name and the gold she had won, a generous price for revealing his most precious secret.”

“Something tells me this is a very complicated story,” Snow said after a moment.

Beth couldn’t help it, she let out a laugh.

“That’s an understatement,” she chuckled. “This story usually takes all evening to tell and it needs proper setup for anyone to even enjoy it. Most of the time, people go all the way into the morning with questions because they’re so confused.”

“So anyway,” Jim said, giving Beth a look. “In order to get the treasure, one needs a special map and that map was in the old pirate’s possession – the one who gave our man the ship, that is.”

“Why did the old pirate have the map to the treasure? I thought only eight people knew about it?” Mulan questioned.

“Because the old pirate was one of the eight,” Jim said simply. “He knew our man from his childhood. They have a bit of a rocky relationship, which isn’t relevant to the story. We’re focusing on the little queen, remember?”

“The man seems just as important though,” Snow pointed out.

“Because he’s the ferryman. The little queen is the true hero,” Jim replied.

“She’s the hero?” Aurora frowned. “So far, she’s the one that’s in trouble. She’s the one away from home because of the star or whatever. She needed to be saved by the man…You should probably give these people names by the way.”

“Easy,” Jim protested. “She’s a nineteen-year old girl who just kicked ass at poker. Give her a break. She was going up against eight men and it took an entire crew to take them out. Sometimes the heroes do need a little saving, but that doesn’t make them any less heroic.”

Beth blushed heavily at his words, doubling her focus on the rock. The flesh of her wrists were starting to bleed from the friction, but the rope’s hold on her felt looser. She was getting somewhere.

“So, they sailed to the old pirate for the special map and when they arrived, he was reluctant to give it away. The old pirate recognized the little queen’s heritage. It’s believed her father had some elven blood in him, causing both him and daughter to have pointed ears. So, he recognized his blood in her. The old pirate did not like the little queen’s father and was afraid of him. However, our man wasn’t going to let the old pirate’s fears get in the way of their mission. He made a passionate speech of the queen’s behalf and it convinced the old pirate into releasing the map. Unfortunately, they were overheard by another pirate – a man of greed like no other. Like the old pirate, he had no love for the little queen’s father and therefore he wanted to hurt her and take the treasure for himself. He resolved to follow them and slit their throats.”

“Okay, there are too many pirates in this story. We’ve got the pirate queen, the noble queen, the old pirate and now the greedy pirate. Give them names please,” Aurora sighed impatiently.

“I’m not very good at giving names,” Jim said, looking towards Beth. “Got any good names, love?”

She bit her lip, thinking for a moment.

“Well, we can call the noble pirate James, the old pirate John…and the greedy pirate…how does Benjamin sound?” Beth asked, arching a brow.

“Benjamin,” Jim repeated. “Why Benjamin?”

“Because I’ve never met a Benjamin who wasn’t an asshole,” Beth replied with a shrug.

“Fair enough. And the little queen?” Jim asked.

Beth glanced over at Snow White, thinking carefully. This was dangerous ground that they were walking on.

“Maggie,” she said after a moment.

“That doesn’t sound regal,” Jim frowned.

“She’s not regal, she’s a pirate,” she jabbed back. “But if it makes you feel better, Maggie is short for Margaret and that’s a very regal name.”

“I love how you give the pirate queen a name like Maggie and the noble pirate a name like James,” Jim smirked.

“Well, he’s noble,” Beth said with an eye roll. “Why? What would you call him?”

“Well, as noble as he is, I’m going to use your argument and say he’s a pirate so he should have more of a nickname. Like Jim or something…” he replied with a shrug.

“Jim?” Beth gave him an unamused look. “Jim is a name for a twelve-year-old. If you want to give him a more appropriate nickname, then go with Jamie. Jamie is sexier.”

“Is he supposed to be sexy?” 

Again, Beth rolled her eyes. “Well, he’s the leading man. They’re supposed to be good-looking or whatever. I don’t know, it’s your fucking story,” Beth responded.

“I feel like something is going on here aside from arguing about story names,” Snow said, looking between the two of them.

“It’s nothing,” Jim sighed. “Anyway, so the greedy pirate Benjamin was not noticed by our heroes…who are now named Jamie and Maggie, which are dumb names but that’s beside the point. Anyway, so Jamie and Maggie, who obtaining the special map they needed, set sail. While they had concluded the first part of their mission, they were a bit cranky with each other since Maggie had been dishonest with the loyal and most noble Jamie and had not told him that she had been the daughter of a most dreaded and infamous pirate in all of the realms. The trust between them had been broken.”

“It would be unrealistic for Maggie to trust him with her identity so I don’t know why this is such harped detail,” Beth replied with a snort.

“Because they had reached an accord and he had done nothing to earn her distrust."

“And he had done nothing to gain that trust. She just met him."

“He had saved her life,” Jim snapped. “That should have been proof enough of his noble character.”

“He saved her from one bar fight,” she snorted. “That doesn’t qualify for her to tell him all of her secrets.”

“Unbelievable,” he muttered, shaking his head.

In a fit of maturity, Beth stuck out her tongue at him.

“Children,” Snow sighed heavily. “Do I need to separate you?”

“Possibly,” Beth replied.

“I’ve seen better behavior from ten-year-olds,” Snow remarked.

“Elizabeth has the maturity of a five-year-old, but I thought we had long established it,” he responded with a small snort.

“Can we just get back to the story? I want to know if Jamie and Maggie get the beans and save the day,” Aurora responded, looking at them impatiently.

“As the princess commands,” Jim chuckled, licking his chapped lips. “Anyway, so a rift had grown between the two of them and all trust had evaporated. A vicious storm broke out into the night and all hands were needed. Four men were carried out to sea. Jamie was almost carried out himself. He had been hit in the head by a piece of debris and had fallen unconscious. Realizing the danger, they were all in, Maggie saved Jim and took over command of the remaining sailors, leading them into successfully weathering the storm.”

“A nineteen-year-old girl took control of a ship?” Mulan asked, disbelieving.

“Yes, I hardly find that surprising though. Didn’t a sixteen-year-old girl become a hero of her country?” Jim asked, giving her a significant look.

Mulan’s mouth gaped a bit, but she shut it with an audible click.

“You’ve heard of that tale?” she asked in a shocked voice.

“Love, I’m a pirate,” he reminded her. “Pirates love stories and tales of teenaged girls besting armies happen to be one of my favorites. Of course, I’ve heard of the infamous Mulan, one of the best swordsmen in her nation. Do you deny your achievement?”

“No,” she admitted. “But that achievement isn’t the rule, it’s the exception.”

“I would argue Maggie was the exception too, but she had been trained to sail from near-birth. Her father was a pirate, remember? And her mother was a princess of a kingdom. Would it not be natural for them to teach her how to sail and how to command?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “I called her the queen for a reason. Drop that girl in army and she would come out a general, believe me.”

Beth bit her lip, shaking her head. Jim had simplified the event. It hadn’t been easy. The pirate crew had been reluctant to take orders from a woman, much less one that was still a teenager. It had been a spark of magic that had gotten them to comply and that compliance had come from fear rather than respect.

“So, she’s a real person?”

“Most stories are based on something real,” he replied calmly.

“You know her though?” Mulan pressed.

“I don’t think any of you are capable of being a proper story audience."

“I just want to know if they ended up okay,” Aurora said, resting her chin on her knees.

“They end up fi”- “Elizabeth don’t you dare ruin my story,” Jim cut off Beth who was about to reassure the princess. 

“Fine, fine,” Beth sighed. “But hurry up. You don’t have to tell them every single fucking detail or this story will take like ten hours.”

“Alright so we’ll speed this along because Miss Elizabeth is getting impatient,” Jim sighed. “So, she took over the crew and saved Jamie, thus earning back his trust and admiration. They had a few more high-sea adventures, one involving a kraken and another with a siren, but with the combined force of Jamie and Maggie, they were able to conquer their foes, not knowing they were being followed by the greedy pirate that we’ve aptly named Benjamin of all things.”

“Because Benjamin is a dick name,” Beth said with a shrug. “And honestly, I would have focused more on the kraken than the nonsense storm and gaining trust thing, but that’s just an error in narration choice. Anyway, carry on.”

“As the lady commands. Anyway, they sailed to the monster whirlpool Scylla which kept the entrance to the island of treasures they were trying to find. Most sailors avoided Scylla because it sunk ships faster than anything, but eight pirates knew that if you sailed through the south side of the whirlpool, you would be transported to another realm. Just as they were about to do just that, their ship was attacked by Benjamin.”

“How was Benjamin’s ship able to just sneak up on them?” Mulan asked, looking unimpressed.

“Benjamin’s ship had an enchantment on it that made it invisible. The enchantment had been cast by a powerful sorceress whose son was the quartermaster of the crew,” Jim replied tiredly.

“Why did the sorceress enchant the ship if her son wasn’t the captain?” Aurora asked.

“Who the hell knows! The ship was just enchanted, okay? That’s how it snuck up on them,” Jim said, growing impatient. “Just stop interrupting, okay?”

“Sorry,” Aurora said sheepishly.

“So, a battle between the ships began. And Maggie, wonderful but idiot pirate queen Maggie, got the brilliant idea to swing across to the enemy ship to take down their gunners. Needless to say, this was a reckless and stupid endeavor,” Jim sighed.

“She was trying to save lives,” Beth shrugged.

“By risking her own like an idiot."

“Was she taken prisoner or something?” Aurora asked.

“Worse,” Jim said grimly. “Maggie was shot in the shoulder by enemy fire and fell into the sea. The only reason she lived was because there was a very nosy mermaid prince who happened to be in the area and had been tracking Maggie on behalf of her parents. He saw her fall and he rescued her, dragging her into Scylla with him so he could take her to the island and heal her wounds. However, Jamie and his crew did not know she had been saved. In fact, they were sure she was dead. Jamie, though, hoped against all hope that she had somehow survived and had been sucked into Scylla.”

“Jamie loved her,” Snow sighed.

“Maggie did get under Jamie’s skin,” Jim admitted.

“A mermaid prince saved Maggie, though?” Aurora prompted.

“As I’m sure you’re aware, mermaids are capable of realm crossing. The mermaid prince’s parents had been friends with the mermaid king and queen and when they realized their daughter was not in their realm, they reached out to them to find her. Their eldest son volunteered for the task,” Jim said with nod.

“What was the mermaid prince’s name?” Snow asked.

Jim immediately looked to Beth to answer that question, realizing how sore of a subject it would be. Beth’s eyes were trained on her boots.

“Dave,” she said in a hollow voice.

“Dave,” Jim repeated. “Love, you really suck at naming royals.”

“Too bad. His name is Dave.”

“Maggie and Dave,” Jim said mulling it over. “Common, but sure. It will work.”

“Maggie and Dave?” Aurora blinked. “Don’t tell me it ends with Maggie and Dave! Jamie has been our hero from the beginning! It should be Maggie and Jamie, not Maggie and Dave!”

“Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?” Jim asked impatiently.

“Yes, I do,” Aurora said with a sigh.

“Then listen!” Jim said meaningfully. “Anyway, so Dave saved Maggie and pulled her into the treasure realm. He swam as fast as he could so she would have a fighting chance. Mermaid tears are powerful, they have healing properties and Dave wept for the wounded Maggie, whom he had become enamored with. You see, Dave and Maggie had known each other since they were little, but he hadn’t seen her years and she had grown into a beautiful young woman despite her roughness. Maggie recovered and had given him a kiss in thanks and he grew even more in love with Maggie.”

“And what about Jamie?” Aurora pressed.

“Jamie just wanted to know if Maggie was alive and he knew that if she had lived, she would have been pulled into the realm of treasure. He broke away from the ship fight to sail directly there. Benjamin’s ship followed. Now, the treasure realm is basically endless water with an island in the middle. The island looks small but was full of enchantments. In fact, some men had tried to walk from one end of the island to the next, thinking it would only take a day but it instead took months. Jamie no longer cared about the treasure. The treasure was meaningless, in fact, the entire journey was meaningless without Maggie."

“Did he find Maggie and Dave?” Snow asked.

“He did eventually,” Jim said with a shrug. “But Benjamin and his crew found him first. Jamie and Benjamin engaged in a pretty awesome sword fight and naturally Jamie won, but because Jamie was the world's most amazing swordsman, he left Benjamin alive, which I’m pretty sure he would now admit was a mistake. Anyway, he found Maggie and Dave and nearly wept with joy that his pirate queen Maggie was still alive. Jim, I mean, Jamie, unlike everyone else, knew how to get around the island’s enchantments and immediately led them to where the beans were located in the horde. As they made their way back to Jamie’s ship. Of course, naturally, Benjamin was waiting there with some of his surviving crew. Maggie being Maggie, of course, challenged Benjamin to a duel. It was a tough match because though Maggie had been trained in sword fighting, she was much smaller than her opponent and Benjamin was a cheat. Maggie, on the other hand, believed in good form.”

When he said the words “good form,” his eyes immediately went to Beth and a hint of a smile etched across his lips. Beth gave him an unimpressed look.

“Benjamin cheated, of course, and had one of his crew stab her in the shoulder during the duel. Immediately realizing that Benjamin would not be honorable, Jamie stepped into the duel and slew him before carrying off the wounded Beth back to his ship with the beans. Knowing he had no time to spare, he used one of the beans and traveled to Maggie’s realm. When he arrived, he knew he would be tempted to stay, so he made sure to give his goodbyes to her on the dock. And when he left, he gave Maggie a bag full of magical beans, just in case she ever wanted to travel again. Maggie cried and clung to Dave as she watched him sail off, but she was certain they would meet again,” Jim concluded.

“That’s it?” Aurora blinked. “He saves the girl, brings her home and leaves her with another man, and that’s your favorite story?”

“Yes."

“I don’t understand why he gave her the beans,” Snow frowned. “Why would she need them? She got her happily ever after. She returned home and got a prince. What could she do with the beans?”

Jim gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“If you think that ending was a happily ever after then you weren’t paying attention and I’m not talking about Jamie, I’m talking about Maggie. Jamie gave her the beans because he knew what she wanted. Maggie wanted adventure, not to settle down and get married. The whole reason the story happened was because she wished for it. Her greatest desire was to leave her kingdom and experience the world – to be a pirate, not a queen or a princess. This story took a while to tell, but the real adventure took months and over those months, Jamie came to know Maggie well and he knew she wanted to travel, which is why he gave her the beans. Because even though he wasn’t the prince, he wanted to give her the happy ending that she wanted, not that one everyone expected her to have,” he answered firmly.

Beth couldn’t breathe nor could she look at Jim, but his words rang hotly in her ears. She nearly dropped the sharp stone as she listened to him and an unknown emotion quelled inside her.

“He really loved her,” Snow said quietly, appraising Jim for a moment. “He must have loved her in the truest sense to give her and the beans up so unselfishly.”

“He absolutely did love her,” Jim agreed. “In his eyes, she was hard not to love even though Maggie was an impulsive, strong-willed mad mess of a pirate queen. Though, not all love is or becomes something romantic. And Jamie was not the one meant to be with Maggie. Dave was.”

“Do you know what happened to them?” Aurora asked. “Did they really all live happily ever after?”

Jim let out a heavy breath.

“That, Princess, is a different story all together and I haven’t heard the ending of it yet, but when I do, I’ll be sure you let you know.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Nightmares?” she asked her quietly.

Aurora blinked, startled that Beth had addressed her.

“I’m sorry?” 

“Are you having nightmares? Is that why you don’t want to sleep?” Beth asked her with a touch of impatience.

Aurora looked startled. Her mouth opened, gaping slightly. She looked puzzled, internally warring of how much she was willing to tell a virtual stranger who might be her enemy. Beth gave her a soft smile. She leaned forward a bit.

“I know the signs. I do the same thing. I pinch myself, slap myself, I dunk myself in cold water, water over my lids, coffee, chew on khat, burn myself if I had to and anything possible to stay awake,” Beth replied with a weak smile. 

“You burn yourself?” Aurora asked, looking stricken.

“Yeah…sometimes…when I feel sleep approaching and I can’t find any other way to stop it,” Beth responded with a shrug that she tried to pull off as nonchalant.

Aurora was staring at her, drinking her in. Beth could almost see the thoughts forming in her head, no doubt wondering where exactly Beth had burned herself.

Beth brought her bound hands up to her lips and tugged down the sleeve of her red greatcoat with her teeth. Once the material was shoved to her elbow, she then tugged down the sleeve of her black linen shirt underneath to reveal a line of small burns no larger than the butt of a cigarette.

Jim shot forward to inspect them, sucking loudly on his teeth. 

“Elizabeth,” he breathed out, looking at her with alarmed eyes. There was a mixture of concern and reproach on his face. Beth already knew what he was thinking and she shook her head.

“Relax,” she huffed. “I don’t get my boots off by hurting myself if that’s what you’re thinking. This was just to keep awake…to keep the nightmares at bay.”

Aurora eyed the burn scars in alarm, looking back and forth between Jim and Beth’s expressions before opening her mouth.

“Do you dream you’re in the burning room too?”

“No, not the burning room. I’ve never been under a sleeping curse. I know plenty of people who have but not myself,” Beth said, shaking her head. “I dream about the man I loved dying.”

“Dave?” Aurora asked.

It was Beth’s turn to do a double take.

“Pardon?” 

“Dave from the story. You’re Maggie obviously. I’m assuming Jack is Jamie. I know you think I’m stupid, but I’m not. You two are painfully obvious,” Aurora responded, pausing after a moment. “And are you really a princess?”

Beth laughed and it bordered almost on hysteria. She couldn’t help it. Of course, out of all of things that Jim had said about her in the story, that was the one thing that Aurora had latched on to - that Beth had some royalty to her.

“I’ve never used a title nor have I ever wanted one,” Beth answered. “But I guess, sure. My mother was born a princess.”

“And your father was a pirate?” Aurora asked, curious.

“Yeah, my old man,” Beth responded with a fond smile. “A reformed pirate he would say, but one none the less. He gave that part of himself up though, for my mom…I think. True love and all that. He settled down and had himself a bunch of brats.”

“How many siblings do you have?” Aurora asked.

“Four brothers,” Beth smiled and it held some bitterness. “I have three older and one younger. All of them are pains in the ass.”

“I never had siblings,” Aurora responded softly. “I always wanted them. I had people who watched over me…my parents too…and they loved me and I loved them, but I was always lonely.”

“Funny,” Beth remarked. “I always kinda wished I was only child. I never really got a moment to myself. Though I was a bit lucky, since I was the only girl, I got a few things to myself but not enough. My brothers…they could be a bit much sometimes…My parents…they used to get pissed when we fought, telling us we were blessed to have each other and that we didn’t know how fortunate we were…. I…I miss them.”

Beth nearly cringed at her own admission but Aurora’s eyes soften a bit.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen them?” Aurora asked gently.

Beth let out a deep breath, ignoring the tears that threatened to well the corners of her eyes. She closed them, hoping that her eyelids would act as a barrier.

“Five months, two weeks, six days, give or take a couple of hours since I have no idea what time it is,” Beth answered.

“And how long have you not been able to sleep?” Aurora asked.

“Six months, four days, give or take a couple of hours,” Beth responded automatically. “Not since Will died. And his name was Will, not Dave…I just…Can we not talk about this...?”

“And your name isn’t Maggie then?” Aurora asked not unkindly.

“Nope. My name is actually Elizabeth. I wasn’t lying. Named for a grandmother I never met,” Beth replied with a chuckle. “Though like no one calls me that. I’ve always been Beth since I was a baby. Not Liz or Lizzie. The last person who call me Liz…well, he’s long gone.”

Israel Hands, with his greasy hair, sunken eyes and gnarled sneer, had loved to mock her. As Blackbeard’s alleged heir, he had been obsessed with her upon the discovery of her lineage but where there had been some sense of respect between Hook and Blackbeard, there had been nothing but savage violence between herself and Hands. She could still hear his dark chuckle and mocking call of “Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie” as he tried to cajole her into fighting. Beth put her hand up to her throat delicately. It had been three years but sometimes she could still feel his calloused hands curled around her neck as he tried to strangle her. He probably would have succeeded if it weren’t for Jim.

Jim shifted his foot again so it was touching hers, breaking her away from thoughts of Hands and grounding her back to the present. Beth looked up, meeting his eyes and she could tell by his expression that if his hands weren’t bound that he would have wrapped his arms around her. He made a meaningful look and nudged his head in Aurora’s direction. She was obviously waiting for her to finish her line of thought before Israel Hands’s ghost had interrupted it.

“So yeah, I’ve never been Liz or Elizabeth. Except Ji-Jack - he calls me Elizabeth but only when I’m being a pain in his ass,” Beth concluded, trying to end on a light note.

“You’re always a pain in my ass, Elizabeth,” Jim called.

“You wouldn’t have me any other way,” Beth shot back, smirking at him.

Jim just rolled his eyes and said nothing, settling back against a tree with a heavy sigh. Beth watched him with laughing eyes, leaning back with a smirk settled on her lips.

Aurora looked back and forth between the two of them.

“You both love each other,” Aurora stated.

“As much as you could love anyone, I guess,” Beth shrugged. “It’s hard to go what we’ve gone through together and not form a tight bond.”

Though Beth had been nonchalant in her wording, no truer words had ever been spoken from her mouth. Her and Jim had forged a near unbreakable bond over the past three years to a point where Beth felt like he had always been there. Together they had weathered more than a few typhoons, traveled to Treasure Island, destroyed a kraken, fought off a legion of mermaids, tackled sirens, taken on Israel Hands, ransacked slaver ships, braved Circe’s wrath and even shouldered to the Maritime Kingdom together to inform Will’s family of his death. The last one had been the hardest. She had never thanked him for helping her stand and holding her through the night in the days following Will’s death. She had been a mess; barely able to do more than shrivel up and cry like a wounded animal.

She still was a mess, but she had just gotten better at hiding it. It was all still there inside of her. She appeared to be fine on the outside, but she felt like a doll that had been sown up with jagged pieces of glass inside of her alongside the still empty cavity in her chest that still felt like it was bleeding. It was said to be impossible to rip out the heart of someone who was born of True Love without their permission and yet Circe had done it.

Aurora opened her mouth, once more ripping Beth away from her dark musings.

“But you’ve never, you know…” She looked back forth between Beth and Jim and raised her eyebrows significantly.

“Are you asking if we’ve ever fucked?” Beth asked, entirely amused.

Aurora was positively scandalized by her words; her face went red and she immediately hid in the fabric of her white silk traveling cloak. Beth couldn’t help but bark out a laugh while Jim looked slightly pained. He gave Beth a disapproving look.

“That was what you were asking, wasn’t it?” Beth smirked. “Well, since you’ve never had siblings, you’d never know, but it’s not natural to want to fuck your brother or sister. And that’s how we view each other. I’m the sister that he never wanted. Isn’t that right, J? Isn’t that what you said to me on the Silver’s Spell all those years ago?”

Jim didn’t say anything, just continued to glare at Beth before bringing his bound hands up to his face and resting his forehead against them. He let out a loud heavy breath, a frustrated noise that made it clear that he was reaching the end of his rope.

“I would bet you ten pieces of gold that he’s strangling me in his mind right now,” Beth said quietly to Aurora.

“You’re purposely antagonizing him,” she replied, looking at Jim in concern.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Beth replied with a shrug. “He makes it too easy and I’ve had a lot of practice. It’s kinda what I do.”

Aurora let out loud yawn and pinched herself. Beth frowned and took a moment to study her, taking in the large circles under her eyes and the unnatural paleness of her skin. 

“You’ve gone too long without sleep,” Beth stared, raising her eyebrows.

“I don’t want to sleep,” she replied. There was an edge of determination in her tone.

“You’re going to have to sleep eventually,” Beth remarked with a twist of her lips. “If you don’t, you’re going to sick. Like really sick. You could possibly die.”

“You went six months without sleeping,” Aurora retorted.

“I went six months trying not to dream,” Beth corrected. “Which means trying to sleep as little as possible and when I needed to sleep, well, I would find myself a nice bottle and drink until I got to the bottom of it. Not the best course of action, but it’s better than the alternative.”

“Self-mutilation and alcoholism,” Jim commented, raising his face from his hands. “You’re the rousing picture of health.”

“This isn’t about me,” Beth snapped. There was an edge to her tone that made it clear that continuing the focus on the state of her health was a dangerous idea. “This is about Princess and the fact she needs to sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” Aurora repeated.

“You need to sleep,” Beth said sternly. She glanced up at Jim who was still looking at her with disapproval but turning back to Aurora. “Listen, if you untie me, I can help with the nightmares. My dad used to do something for me to help me sleep soundly when I was younger and perhaps it will help for you…”

Aurora looked conflicted, glancing between Beth’s bound hands and her face.

“I…”

“What’s going on?” 

Mulan and Snow White had returned from whatever conversation they were having and were looking between Aurora, Beth and Jim with clear suspicion. Aurora paled slightly, but Beth decided to punch forward with the proposal.

“I offered to help Princess here with her nightmares, but I need my hands to do it,” Beth stated, arching her head so she could look them both in the eyes.

“Absolutely not,” Mulan said. “Do we look like morons to you?”

“You really don’t want me to answer that question honestly,” Beth replied. “Especially if you think untying me is really that dangerous. I’m not armed. My closest ally is also unarmed and tied to a tree. There’s three of you and two of you are armed. I mean one of you is armed with a long-range weapon, which I’ve seen her use quite comfortably. If I fight, Ninja Warrior mows me down because swords tend to do well in fist fights. If I run, Little Miss Pastel shoots me down with her bow and I’m a much larger target than an ogre eye. I fail to see why untying me is such a dangerous prospect.”

“Because you might be planning something,” Mulan replied, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Do I seem like a girl with much of a plan? I mean, really? Because I’ll be honest, I’m more of the make-it-up-as-I-go-along kinda girl, if you know what I’m saying,” Beth replied, leaning back a bit more.

“No, I don’t know what you’re saying,” Mulan snapped. “You’re pirate and that means you’re trouble.”

“Look, ma’am, I think what Beth is trying to say is that she’s impulsive girl who does a lot of questionable things, but she doesn’t have a death wish…or at least one that she would admit to,” Jim said with a sigh.

Beth whipped her head to glare at him but Jim only raised his eyebrows at her when she did, as if privately challenging her to do something about what he had said. He knew as well as she did that unless they untied her, there wasn’t much she could do except perhaps kick him to death. That would take a lot of effort to accomplish though and Beth wasn’t prepared to put in the effort.

“She is right though,” Snow said after a moment. “It’s not like we can’t take her if she causes trouble.”

  
Snow and Mulan stared at each other, as if having a silent argument with their eyes. Beth had seen Snow do this before with her grandfather. She had always been privately impressed with her grandmother’s ability to win arguments and shut people down with a glance.

“If she gets away or something bad goes down, it’s on you,” Mulan said suddenly, breaking the silence.

“That’s fine,” Snow replied, stepping forward and taking Beth’s bound hands in her own. She took out a dagger from her back pocket, which Beth recognized as her own. Snow delicately cut the binds before taking note of Beth’s bloody and blistered wrists. “That looks like it hurts. What happened?”

“Rope burns happened,” Beth answered easily, raising her left arm up to examine the damaged flesh. 

The skin was torn and blood dribbled hotly down her arm. The ripped-up flesh stung as it was exposed to the open air. However, Beth knew that blistering was more from her work with the rock than from the ropes. 

“It looks really painful,” Snow remarked, grimacing.

Beth looked up from her wrist, shrugging.

“I’ve had worse. This is more of a nuisance than anything really,” Beth replied.

She reached into one of the pockets of her greatcoat. Mulan and Snow immediately stiffened at the action, but relaxed when Beth produced only a white handkerchief. She tore it with her teeth before wrapping her left wrist then her right. She gave them an amused look.

“What were you expecting? A knife? Please.” 

Beth didn’t wait for answer, she turned back to where Aurora and Jim were sitting. She sat back into her spot and patted on her lap.

“If you want to sleep quietly, rest your head here,” Beth said.

Aurora looked at Beth’s lap questioningly. She seemed conflicted.

“I’m not going to bite, I promise. You might want to lose the tiara though,” Beth said with a sigh.

Aurora looked to Snow, silently asking her for advice. It was as if she wanted approval from the other woman, like a little girl asking her mother if she was allowed to do something. Beth nearly snorted. Aurora was a grown woman. She was perfectly capable of making decisions without anyone else.

“I won’t let her do anything to you,” Snow reassured. “And if you want, I’ll take care of your tiara.”

Aurora pulled her jeweled crown from her hair and placed it in Snow’s hands, fingers shaking slightly as she let it go. It was obvious that Aurora felt some attachment to piece of head jewelry. Beth had never felt any sentimental value to something aside from the hook necklace her father had gotten her for her thirteenth birthday, which she still wore. The thought of it made her touch the necklace in question, fingers running along the old metal fishing hook.

“What are you going to do to me?” Aurora questioned.

“Nothing that you won’t enjoy,” Beth replied, patting her lap again.

Jim made a tittering noise at Beth’s statement, obviously interpreting her words as slightly dirtier than Beth had intended. Beth leaned forward a bit and gave him a swift kick, glaring.

“You’re a sick bastard,” she said.

“You thought it too,” he defended.

“Do I even want to know what either of you are talking about?” Aurora asked, face turning bright red yet again.

“No,” they said in unison.

Beth patted on her lap again, looking at Aurora expectantly.

“This is a one-time offer, Princess. I’m not in the habit of doing freebies,” Beth replied.

“Then why are you doing it now?” Aurora asked suspiciously.

“Don’t know. Just felt sorry for you. Nightmares and all that. Just helping out a fellow insomniac.” 

Aurora seemed to accept this answer since she approached Beth and settled her head in her lap, looking up at her with questioning eyes. Beth rested her hand on the crown of Aurora’s head for a moment, before gently digging her fingers through her hair; nails dragging lightly against her scalp.

Aurora’s hair felt like silk; it was obviously well taken care of. It reminded Beth of Ruthie’s hair, though it was entirely the wrong color. Ruthie had almost jet-black hair like Beth’s grandmother where Aurora’s hair, while brown, was more honey in its hue. Maybe if she closed her eyes, she could pretend it was Ruthie’s hair she was playing with instead of Aurora’s.

“What are you doing?”

“Head massage,” Beth responded. “My dad used to do them for me when I was little girl and I couldn’t sleep.”

“It feels…nice.”

“I should hope so,” she chuckled. “It’s supposed to feel good, though I’m not really practiced at it. My dad is a lot better at it, even with…” 

Beth trailed, not finishing her sentence. Her parents were just up the beanstalk and her grandmother was a mere few feet from her, and yet they weren’t. They didn’t know her and weren’t capable of loving her, let alone comforting her. They were like undeveloped photographs; she knew the gorgeous final result, but they were not there yet, not quite finished.

“You sound sad…” Aurora said quietly.

“I’m kinda homesick,” Beth responded, voice cracking slightly.

Jim kicked her foot gently again and Beth looked up to meet his gaze. He didn’t say anything, at least not with his mouth, but his eyes were looking at her with such sympathy that she had to look away. She didn’t want his pity.

“You must really miss your family,” Aurora said sympathetically. “Would talking about them help?”

Beth was silent for a moment, focusing all of her energy on massaging Aurora’s scalp as she weighted her options. Telling Aurora anything was risky, but if she kept it vague she couldn’t see the harm in it. 

“I was really close to my family growing up. I had my brothers and I had…cousins….” Neal, Ruthie and Robbie were really her uncles and her aunt, but they had always been more like cousins to her. It was better to describe them as such considering they were all the same age and raised together. “I have only one female cousin…you would like her…she’s the perfect princess. Ruthie is kind, gentle and pretty…feminine…everything I wasn’t. I never really liked girl things you know…I would make a bad princess.”

Jim snorted, not even looking apologetic when Beth glared at him.

“Anyway, I love Ruthie now…but when I was little, I kinda wanted nothing to do with her. I was a right shit to her at times. I wanted to be one of the boys. You see, they got to do all the fun stuff. My grandfather and my dad used to teach all the boys to sword fight. All of my brothers and my male cousins got to learn while my grandmother would give Ruthie and I dolls to play with. I don’t like dolls. I never liked dolls…”

“What’s wrong with dolls?” Aurora asked, opening her eyes.

“Nothing…they just weren’t my thing…But Ruthie loved them. She used to give them flower names…She loves flowers, Ruthie does…so all of her dolls were Daisy, Rose, Azealia, Dahlia, Iris and what not. I always gave her my dolls. Never named them…but I would get so bored, just watching her play and she would always try to include me…and I wasn’t always nice,” Beth responded, licking the corner of her lip.

“Let me guess,” Jim spoke. “You tried to sneak in on those sword-fighting lessons.”

“Yeah…I would ditch poor Ruthie…and try to sneak in on the lessons. Grandpa used to get mad and say I was too little to learn. The boys were older and bigger than me, he would say. I didn’t care though. And one time…my brother Har was sparring my oldest cousin and my oldest cousin is like five years older than me. Neal. I’m like maybe four or five years old at this time, he was maybe ten and he disarms my brother Har, who is a terrible swordsman both then and now, just really terrible, and he has his practice sword pointed at my brother and I didn’t even think…I just picked up a sword that was lying around and ran forward and just started whacking my cousin repeatedly with it.”

“Why on earth did you do that to your poor cousin?” Aurora asked.

“I thought he was going to hurt My brother so I just kept whacking him with the wooden sword and he was yelling at me to stop…my grandfather had to pull me off and my father just laughed his ass off. I could only imagine it was a funny picture to witness - a four-year girl taking on a ten-year old boy with a play sword,” Beth smiled.

“I’m not even surprised,” Jim chuckled. “I can’t imagine you not being feisty, even as a small child.”

“Anyway, my dad took the hint and realized that he had a more eager pupil than my older brothers,” Beth concluded. “And every day until the day I left, he gave me lessons.”

“You and your father must have been close,” Aurora commented sleepily.

“Very,” Beth said with a small smile. “He taught me everything there was to know about sailing and sword fighting and astronomy. He would tell the best stories and let me stay up way pass my bedtime and…he was funny and sometimes over protective…but he was always willing to help out and listen…and just…he’s the best…Well, I always thought he was the best…”

The smile died as she thought on the events of the past few days. Beth had always thought of her father as a level of perfection that she had to strive for, but now she didn’t know what to think. Hook was nothing like the dashing but honorable man that Beth had always perceived her father to be. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. A part of her felt like she had just found out the altar that she had been praying to her whole life had been discovered as false.

A silence lulled as Beth lost herself in her thoughts again and Aurora’s eyes grew heavy under Beth’s ministrations. As Aurora fell asleep, Jim shifted so that he was sitting next to Beth. He placed his foot once more next to hers. It was almost humorous how large his feet were; nearly three times the size of her own. She idly remembered her early days in the Enchanted Forrest when Jim had found her and given her his clothes to borrow after she had been thrown overboard. She had worn his shirt as a dress and had practically swam in his boots. She had tripped so many times trying to climb the ladder out of the captain’s quarters while wearing them.

“I’m worried about you,” he said after a moment.

“I got that memo back in Circe’s castle,” Beth replied quietly.

“No, that was more of a mild concern compared to what I’m feeling right now,” Jim said, frowning. “It’s one thing to ruthlessly and mindlessly hunt down a witch goddess, it’s an entirely other thing to purposely hurt yourself.”

“It’s a means to an end, Jim.”

“You sure? You sure this isn’t something else…?”

“What are you implying?” she whispered.

“Don’t make me say it, Elizabeth…”

“Don’t make accusations if you’re not prepared to voice them” she responded with some steel in her tone.

Jim gave her a troubled look. He sighed heavily, large shoulders heaving as he let out the breath.

“Are you sure you’re not trying to punish yourself for what happened to Will?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Beth snapped quietly, making a conscious effort not to wake Aurora. “I didn’t kill Will. Circe did. I know I’m not at fault for that.”

“But do you really? Because I know you, Beth, and I know that you think that her curse was meant for you…”

“It was meant for me,” Beth asserted. “That killing curse was meant to kill me. He meant nothing to her. It was me she wanted.”

“I know…and I think you’re still obsessing over that and it’s not healthy. None of this is healthy. And this is coming from a place of love, but right now, I’m scared for you. More than I’ve ever been. You’ve changed so much since what happened, love. I sometimes fear that little queen is dead…”

“She is…she died with Will, Jim.”

“Then I’m going to have to bring her back to life then,” Jim said, the tips of his fingers brushing against the hand resting on top of Aurora’s head. “Because that little queen was my favorite person in all of the realms.”

Beth gave him a bitter smile before glancing at his leather coat.

“Got anything in those pockets that might help us out of a jam? I’ve got a heavy feeling in my gut,” she whispered.

“Well, a small knife in the inner breast pocket, sorry love, but I would never give that baby up. I also have a compass, a few things of rope, a couple of rages, that strange writing utensil you’re so fond of, a few sweets, some khat and the sleep dust,” Jim replied.

Beth’s eyes went wide as he listed off his personal inventory. 

“You still have the fucking magic roofies? What the fuck? I thought we agreed to get rid of those,” she exclaimed.

Aurora stirred a bit in her lap, causing Beth to pause and soothe the girl’s hair in an effort to keep her from awaking.

“I still have no idea what a bloody roofie is but if you thought I was going to give up that dust, you were woefully mistaken. It’s helped me out of more than a few jams,” Jim replied defensively.

“That shit can knock people out for days,” she hissed.

“A day or two,” Jim corrected. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it last more than two days.”

“Is that supposed to make me happy?” Beth responded in a low whisper.

“No. But I was thinking…maybe we should use the dust on these three and get the fuck out of here. I’m pretty sure your parents can handle the beanstalk on their own. They did it before without us, they can do it again…or for the first time…or something…you know what I mean,” Jim sighed, looking haggard.

“No,” Beth said firmly.

Her green eyes were stony and there was a small tick in her jaw that made Jim sigh again at the sight of it. He knew this look better than most; it was the look she gave people when she was putting her foot down and when Beth Jones put her foot down, she didn’t waver.

“Why not, Elizabeth?”

“Because I said so, but more importantly because we don’t know what knocking them out would do to the timeline…”

“Yeah, we don’t know what WE’RE doing the timeline. We’re not supposed to be here, Beth! Every second we’re here, we’re risking irreversible damage to the past and for all we know, we could be unraveling your parents’ relationship and your conception by just breathing.”

“You’re being overdramatic,” Beth responded with a roll of her eyes.

“That’s a bit like pot calling the kettle black, love,” Jim chuckled, looking up at the sky. “How do we get out of this mess…?”

“The same way we get out of every mess, Pinkie, we make it up as we go along,” Beth chuckled.

“I feel like you’re referencing something yet again,” Jim replied in annoyed tone.

“It’s not whether or not I was referencing something, my dear Jim, but when am I not referencing something that you should be concerned with.”

Jim’s eyebrows furrowed at that comment, but he made no other response. He looked up at the beanstalk quietly for a moment. Beth watched him, studying his facial expressions. Whatever was going on in Jim Hawkins’s head was not good.

“I just can’t see how we’re going to get out of this,” he murmured.

“You need to have a little more faith in us,” Beth responded. “We’ve gotten through worse. Remember Glowrock Cave? When we nearly drowned? That was a much more dire situation than this.”

Jim made a noise of disagreement, shaking his head.

“Perhaps the situation felt direr, but this…how do we get back from this, Beth? Even if we get away from these three, how do we get back home? Time travel magic isn’t just something readily available. I didn’t even know it existed until, well, Circe.”

“It’s been done before and it’s been fixed before. I don’t know exactly how, but it has and there’s nothing we can’t accomplish, Jim. We’ve always been a dynamic duo - Hawkins and Jones. You can’t beat us,” Beth replied, leaning forward and placing her hand on top of his bound ones.

“Since when have you been such an optimist?” Jim asked in disbelief. “Who are you and what have you done with Beth Jones?”

Beth lifted her hand, formed a fist and punched him in the shoulder.

“Very funny asshole.”

A silence lulled between them and Jim made another heavy sigh. Beth eyed him quietly. The circles under his eyes were very pronounced, almost to the point that the lines seemed cut into his skin. Every now and again, a nerve in his left eye twitched. He looked positively exhausted.

“You should sleep too,” Beth said after a moment.

“Not a chance in hell,” he replied immediately. “Just give me a bit of the khat in my pocket and I’ll be right as rain.”

“I’m not doing that to you, Jim,” Beth replied firmly, crossing her arms in front of her chest, which was a difficult task considering Aurora was sleeping in her lap. “You know the shit that stuff is for you.”

Khat was an herb that Beth had encountered not long after she began sailing around the realms and something that was chewed by nearly all sailors she knew, pirates and otherwise. It was a stimulant with amphetamine-like properties often used to prolong wakefulness and diminish appetite. The excitement and euphoria it caused were addicting and Beth knew all too well the influence of it. She had kicked the habit nearly two months ago when she had started hallucinating nearly five days of staying awake under its influence, but she still felt the pull.

“Sometimes it’s necessary,” Jim responded.

“And now is not one of those times,” Beth remarked, arching an eyebrow. “You should get some sleep.”

“What? Want me to rest my head in your lap too next to Sleeping Beauty?” Jim scoffed. “Should I call you Mama Jones now with all this maternal instinct coming out?”

Beth’s expression faltered and a flicker of unparalleled sadness shone in her eyes for a brief moment before she looked away from him and back at where Mulan was scratching another line in the dirt. Her eyes stung a bit but she ignored it, clenching her hands into fists.

“No,” she replied in a voice that was suddenly hoarse. “I’m no one’s mother and I never will be.”

“Hey…” Jim’s voice went soft on her. “What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling?”

“I think the more important question is what isn’t wrong and to be honest with you, I can’t think of anything…I’m trying, Jim, I’m trying…”

“Where did all that optimism go, love? It was just here a second ago,” Jim murmured.

“That was more bravado than actual optimism,” Beth chuckled darkly. “I’m afraid that gene skipped me, but anyway, you need to rest, Jim. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“If I sleep, will you?” Jim asked, looking at her questioningly.

Beth gave him a bitter smile.

“Maybe.”

“You’re such a liar,” Jim snorted.

“A maybe isn’t a yes,” Beth replied defensively.

“It’s not a no either,” Jim shot back. “You’re going to try to stay up again.”

“One of us needs to sleep, Jim, and I can’t…I know I am going to need to do something about what’s been going on, but right now, we have bigger issues. We’re better off if you’re at least sharp instead of both of us being dead,” she replied.

Jim let out a heavy sigh and shifted next to her, placing his head on her shoulder. Beth wrapped an arm around his shoulders, fingers tracing patterns into his bicep. Without giving it much thought, she tilted her head to it was resting slightly on top of his.

“Do I look like a pillow to you, Hawkins?”

“Well, the princess seems to think so, considering how soundly she’s sleeping on your lap. Thought I would see if you’re as comfy as you look in that ridiculously flashy coat of yours. Though, between you and me, you’re a bit too bony, Jones…” Jim laughed.

“Well, if I’m too bony, go find a makeshift pillow elsewhere,” Beth replied in amusement.

“Nope, too lazy,” Jim said. “Your boniness is growing on me…”

“Asshole,” she chuckled.

“Guilty.” Jim yawned. “Wake me up when something happens, okay?”

“I promise,” she replied, rubbing her cheek against the crown of his head. “Until then, sleep well and dream of large women.”

“You’re quoting something again,” he mumbled.

“Always am.”

It wasn’t long before Jim’s breath evened out and he was asleep. She silently cursed her poor planning as she was now stuck with Aurora sleeping on her lap and Jim snoring away at her shoulder.

Without anyone to distract her, Beth found herself lost in her thoughts. She didn’t know how much time had passed when she heard a delicate cough from in front of her. She blinked rapidly, trying to regather her bearings.

Snow White was sitting before her, eying her and her sleeping companions with a mixture of amusement and confusion.

“Can I help you?” Beth asked, looking at her pointedly.

“I’m just wondering why you haven’t run off yet. I mean you were free…”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t necessarily enthusiastic about the possibility of you putting an arrow in my ass,” Beth replied with a sarcastic smile. “I mean that’s one of my better assets. Best not ruin that.”

“Right…” Snow White didn’t seem to know what to say to that comment. Beth could see the gears in her head working as she was deciding to change tactics. “You were nice to Aurora…”

“I have a weakness for beautiful and broken things,” Beth said lightly.

“Because you see yourself in them?” Snow asked, looking at her curiously.

“You think I’m beautiful?” Beth smirked.

Snow rolled her eyes, obviously not impressed with Beth’s choice of diversion.

“You know you’re beautiful,” she said flatly. “But I also think you’ve seen a lot of things…and I think it’s left a mark on you.”

“That’s just a polite way of saying I’m damaged,” Beth responded defiantly.

“Well, I think it’s fair to say we’re all damaged in our own way. It’s just how you deal with that damage that counts,” Snow replied somewhat uncomfortably. “You helping out Aurora…I didn’t expect that, but thank you for doing it nonetheless.”

“Like I said to her, I’m just helping out a fellow insomniac,” Beth replied stiffly. “I know what it’s like to have debilitating and traumatic nightmares.”

“I do as well,” Snow replied with a small smile. “I had them for months…Charming…my husband…he used to wake me. When I cried out, he’d light a candle. He said it would capture the nightmares. He’d watch over me as I fell back to sleep.”

Beth’s eyes soften a bit at that and though Snow was very young, Beth could see the woman that would be her grandmother in her. She had seen firsthand just how in love her grandmother and grandfather were; the baseline definition of True Love.

“That sounds nice,” Beth said with a small smile. “I wish I still had someone like that. I’ve been on my own for a while now…and though, I think I’ve done pretty well for myself, it would have been nice to have someone just light a candle…”

“But you do have someone like that,” Snow said, nodding her head towards the sleeping Jim. “I don’t know how you don’t see that.”

“We’re not like th”- Beth’s denial was cut off by a loud noise.

Both she and Snow turned to see Mulan striking at the beanstalk with her sword. There was a determined set to her jaw as she took another swing at the beanstalk. The monstrous thing swayed precariously. Beth and Snow shared a look of horror before turning to Mulan.

“Whoa! Wait! What are you doing?” Snow cried.

“Just stay back. Emma gave me ten hours,” Mulan replied, looking somewhat apologetic.

“No! No! No!” Snow got to her feet rushing towards the warrior.

Beth did the same. She pushed both Aurora and Jim off of her roughly and got to her feet. She immediately spied Snow’s bag, which held all of her and Jim’s weapons. She immediately lunged for it and went to grab her cutlass. She couldn’t let Mulan do this. If she cut the beanstalk down, she would ruin everything. Her parents would be stuck up there and be left for dead.

“What’s going on?” Aurora asked in alarm, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Mulan is trying to cut down the beanstalk while Emma and Hook are still up there!” Beth explained in a rush as she picked up her weapon and ran towards Mulan and Snow.

“What!? No!” Aurora shouted, turning to Mulan in aghast. “You’re just going to leave her to die!?”

“Ten hours!” Mulan shouted back, raising her sword again. “She may already be dead.”

“No!” Beth shouted, getting between Mulan and the beanstalk.

She raised her cutlass to meet Mulan’s sword and the two met in a loud almost thunderous clash that made the bones in Beth’s hand rattle. Beth had to step back a bit to brace more against the blow. Her furious green eyes met Mulan’s over the steel.

“I won’t let you do this,” Beth hissed. “You’re killing them.”

“This matter doesn’t concern you,” Mulan said curtly. “Step aside or I will cut you down!”

“Do your worst,” Beth replied, narrowing her eyes. “Because you’re going to have to get through me to cut down this beanstalk.”

“You really think you can take me on, pirate?” Mulan scoffed, sizing Beth up in a manner that made it obvious that she found the other woman lacking.

“I don’t need to think,” Beth replied defensively. “I know I can.”

“I have the bigger sword,” Mulan replied, rearing back and jabbing at her.

“Well, as a man once told me, it’s not the size that matters,” Beth smirked, blocking the attack. Her block was successful but she was losing a bit of ground. “But more of how you use it. Granted, he was a lying sack of shit in the context of that conversation, but I think the quote works rather brilliantly for swords, don’t you think?”

“Do you ever shut up?” Mulan snapped.

“Why? Am I bothering you? I thought that I was going to be an easy adversary?”

Mulan’s nostrils flared a bit at Beth’s commentary. She swung high at Beth again, trying to use her height and strength to her advantage. Once more, Beth met the attack with a block, the force of it making her hands shake. Mulan was stronger than her and Beth was now convinced that her sword was enchanted, but Beth was faster and had a bit more moves up her sleeve. She spun, throwing Mulan a bit off balance and sending a parry of her own.

“Snow, a little help?” Mulan called as she blocked Beth’s attack.

Snow looked between Mulan and Beth, her conflicting emotions evident on her face. It was quite clear that she didn’t know who to choose between: the woman who had been her ally but has cutting off her daughter’s chances of survival or the strange woman who had been her prisoner.

“Snow! Cutting the beanstalk was your daughter’s wish! Help me!” Mulan called again.

“Stop!”

Both Beth and Mulan froze at the command, turning their heads to see Emma jump down from the beanstalk. She wobbled a bit on the rather ungrateful landing she pulled off. Snow immediately rushed to her side, wrapping her arms around her daughter. Beth breathed out a sigh relief at the sight of her.

“You okay?” Snow asked Emma, smoothing her hands over her shoulders.

“Two earthquakes and a jump from a beanstalk. I think my brain’s still rattling around a little,” Emma responded a bit breathlessly.

Snow hugged her fiercely, as if she were trying to fuse the two of them together.

“I did what she ordered, nothing more than that,” Mulan said defensively.

“Shut up,” Beth snapped, glaring at the other woman. She didn’t want to hear her excuses for nearly killing Beth’s parents.

“Where’s Hook?” Aurora asked after a moment.

It was then that Beth realized that her father wasn’t present and it felt like a bucket of ice had been dumped over her head. A dark and heavy feeling grew in her gut and threatened to consume her.

Emma looked away for a moment, a mixture of conflicted emotions covering her face. That look was all Beth needed to know what had happened and a fear unlike anything Beth had ever felt crept its way inside of her until she felt like she was made of ice and pin-needles.

“You left him,” Beth stated coldly.

“He’s detained,” Emma responded. “Let’s go. Get your stuff”- “You left him,” Beth cut her off.

“Yes!” Emma barked in frustration. “Why does that even matter to you?”

  
“Everything matters to me!” Beth snapped, hysteria rising. “You left him to die! How does that not matter!”

“No, I didn’t”- “I don’t care about your justifications! I don’t want to hear your excuses and your lies!” Beth interrupted her again.

Beth gripped the cutlass tightly in her hand as if it was her lifeline. She felt completely out of control and horrified by what her mother had done. She had ruined everything. Hook was going to die up there and she was going to be erased from existence.

“You don’t even know what you have done,” Beth whispered fervently. “I can’t believe you just did that! You just fucked us! You just left him there! You’re supposed to be the fucking Savior! You’re the fucking Savior and you left him to die. You’re no hero. You’re no Savior. You’re a fucking hypocrite.”

Emma looked taken aback by Beth’s words, both confused and outraged. Snow let out a sharp intake of breath, looking at her in aghast, but Beth didn’t care. She moved forward, almost without thinking all while still holding on tightly to the cutlass.

“Beth! Calm down,” Jim called from behind her. “You’re getting emotional. You need to stop before you do something you regret.”  
  
“Fuck off!” Beth shouted at him, not even breaking from her furious stare down with her mother. “Don’t you realize what she’s done!? She’s fucked up everything! We’re all fucking screwed! She bloody left him to die!”

“I didn’t leave him to die!” Emma snapped. “Who the hell are you? Really?”

“It doesn’t matter much anymore,” Beth replied in a hysterical laugh. “Because you fucked everything up. I’m screwed.”

“Beth, stop talking!” Jim shouted. This time his voice was closer.

“It doesn’t matter because the so-called Savior has literally just messed up everything,” Beth replied. “Everything is ruined. I’m going die anyway.”

Everyone looked perplexed by her comments.

“How are you going to die?” Aurora asked.

“Because she!” Beth pointed at Emma. “Just killed me in the biggest twist of irony of all time considering that she’s”- Beth didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence as a large arm wrapped itself around her waist like a steel band and pulled her back.

Before she could even verbalize a protest, a rag was placed over her mouth and all Beth could sense was an acrid but sweet smell as the world went black.


	5. Chapter 5

Beth Jones felt like she had been through the night from hell, like an invisible person had put a jack hammer to her skull. There also was a distinct cottony taste in her mouth, which reminded her of the time that she had been nearly roofied at a senior house party in high school. It was as if someone had put her through the wringer. On top of that, her wrists felt like tenderized burger meat. Aside from the awful state of her body, all she could was that she was still outside due to scratchiness against her cheek and the pungent smell of grass.

She groaned and tried to push herself up, only she couldn’t because her wrists were once again bound with thick rope. She gritted her teeth, anger coiling in her stomach.

It was dark and well into the night considering the chill and the dew forming on her clothes. She was laying on the outskirts of a makeshift camp, judging by the small fire burning and the vague shapes of sleeping bodies not too far from it. A familiar heavy leather coat had been placed over her and she knew just from the smell that it was Jim’s. She immediately scanned her surroundings, looking for him. She didn’t have to look very far.

“Glad you could join us in the world of the living…”

He wasn’t looking at her. He was sitting on a log with his sword resting against his thigh. He was cleaning what appeared to be some sort of decaying matter off of it. His brow was furrowed in mock concentration as he rubbed at the steel with a dirty rag. She knew from experience that he could do it in his sleep. He had been waiting for her.

“You fucking asshole," she hissed between clenched teeth.

“No need to be nasty.”

“You roofied me, you whoreson.”

“My mother kept inns, but she certainly wasn’t a whore. Kindly keep her out of your insults,” he replied in a light tone.

“Alright. Fine. You still roofied me, you lowlife lying sack of shit warmed over.”

“Much more creative. And I like to think of it more as saving your life rather than, what was it? Roofying you?”

“Saving my life?” she repeated dubiously, pushing her knees for forward and pulling herself into a kneeling position. It was an awkward feat considering her tied hands.

“Aye. You were getting emotional and nearly compromised the en-everything. Knocking you out was the best course of action.”

“Oh my god!” She let out a humorless laugh. “Fuck you.”  
  
“You can swear at me all you like, but you know I’m right.”

“Suck a dick.”

“Bit inexperienced with that, but I’m sure you could give me pointers.”

“I hate you.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” he replied, tone changing as he regarded her seriously. “I’m probably the only person you haven’t actively tried to push out of your life…”

She flopped backwards, kicking out her legs and staring up at the sky. She was silent for a moment before she lifted up her bound wrists and shaking them.

“And what do you call this? Saving my life still?”

“Nope. That’s saving mine.”

“Right,” she laughed again. The sound was bitter and angry. “You realize that this isn’t going to hold me for very long, right?”

“Oh no. This isn’t designed to detain you, love. I wouldn’t be so stupid as to believe that would hold you indefinitely. Just trying to keep you occupied while you cool your heels a bit.”

“Cool my heels? Do you think I’m a child that you can just put in time out?” she spat.

“Do you really want me to answer that honestly?”

His nonchalant demeanor made her blood boil. Her jaw worked silently as she tried not to lunge at him. It was best not to strike him out in her anger. Waiting and jumping him when he least expected it would be the best course of action. Her revenge would be swift and just.

She let out a heavy breath through her nose as she took a moment to collect herself.

“How long was I out?” Beth asked after a moment.

“Two days. You missed a lot. Walking corpses. Kidnapped princesses. Mulan going crazy. I’m pretty sure she fancies Aurora. A new quest.”

She grunted in response, still pissed at him. The mention of zombies did pique her interest though. Jim watched her, obviously waiting for her to comment. She huffed and made an impatient gesture for him to continue with her bound hands.

“We learned that Aurora and somehow Snow are capable of talking to some bloke in another realm named Henry while they’re sleeping? I’m afraid I’m not entirely versed on how that works…That level of magic is beyond me.... Anyway, there is apparently something in the Dark One’s cell that they need and somehow they think it’s how they’re going to beat a witch named Cora…”

“You’re going to have to rewind a bit on the Wikipedia summary because I’m totally lost. Because of you,” Beth replied in annoyance, fingers twitching. She really wanted to use her hands. It wasn’t until now that she realized just how much she used her hands while talking. The situation was beginning to try on the last of her patience. “All I got was something about zombies, Sleeping Beauty nonsense and a lesbian showdown.”

He gave her an incredulous look. “A lesbian showdown? How the hell did you get that from what I just said?”

“I don’t know. You’re the one who brought up people fancying people. I’m just the poor girl who got roofied like she was at her first rush party.”

“Sometimes I think you insist on using such inane language with the purpose of deliberately making me cross. I have no bloody idea what ‘roofied’ means.”

“Yeah, if you’re just catching on to that then I can’t help you,” she snorted. “And, roofied is a term used to describe the act of drugging poor unsuspecting bystanders who trust you and end up with shit memory because you’re a dickbag.”

“That’s definitely not what happened!” he shouted, affronted.

“It is.” Her tone brokered no argument. “Now give me the Sparknotes again.”

“Sparknotes?”

“Jesus Christ, just give me the play-by-play.”

“I swear it’s like you’re speaking Greek every time you talk.”

“And sometimes I think I’m in a Shakespeare in the Park production when you speak but we won’t talk about that.”

“Greek, love. Bloody Greek.”

“Not your love,” she spat. “Especially not right now. Just tell me everything I missed.”

“You really are quite furious with me, aren’t you?”

Beth grunted as she pulled herself back into a sitting position. Her lips were twisted into a permanent scowl.

“Did you expect me to just move on in five seconds? Fuck no. I’m pissed and I’m going to stay pissed at you for the next…well, not the next anything. Probably forever. Because you’re a shithead who did shitty things.”

“Well, if you’re just gonna stew like a child, I’m not gonna tell you anything. I may have knocked you out, but don’t forget who got us into this mess.”

“Yeah, Circe.”

“You can’t blame everything on Circe, love.”

“Watch me.”

Jim sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t getting us anywhere…”

“I’m fully aware of that. Just tell me what happened already,” she snapped.

“Okay, okay. Well, I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that your little tantrum was over nothing. Daddy dearest is alive and well. And apparently, helped rescue Aurora.”

“What?”

“Well, your mom…who is like you except a thousand times more closed off...I wanna didn’t even think was possible, but it is. Apparently, she told some giant to keep him up there for ten hours to give us a head start. So, no. She didn’t leave him to die.” He was using that tone again. The one a schoolteacher used when disciplining an unruly child. It was one of the few condescending things he liked to do that made her rage. She had the strongest urge to deck him.

“There’s an ‘us’ now?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her tone.

“Well, of course. I mean, these ladies are our best bet to get home. They seem like an honorable bunch.”

“They practically hogtied us!”

“Well, considering two of them share genetics with you, it was kinda a given. You lot seem to have that habit,” he replied, raising his eyebrows at her significantly.

She couldn’t stop the blush that rose to her cheeks at the comment, thinking back on the night she met him. He had been gracious; helping her out a tight spot with some rather nasty men and even offering to help her get home for a small fee. She had returned his generosity with suspicion and when he had fallen asleep that night in his chair after giving her his bed, she had tied him to it and interrogated him. He had been calm and collected during her intense line of questioning and she had been secretly impressed by it. He earned her trust and admiration after answering her questions fully and truthfully without once yelling for help.

“Whatever,” she said, banishing the memories from her mind. “What else?”

“So, after I knocked you out. I had to do some explaining for your freak out. As you can understand they were quite suspicious of your reaction, considering how we denied knowing Hook….”

“Oh Jesus Christ, what did you tell them? You’re the worst liar I know. There’s no way my mom didn’t sniff you out! I barely pass her inspection.”

“You know most people prize honesty? Being a pathological liar isn’t a good thing, Elizabeth.”

“It is in our line of work. Now, what did you tell her?”

“Well, I said that Hook knew your father and he was your last link to him. And that you were separated from him and trying to one day get back to him.”

“Huh. That’s shockingly not terrible as I thought it was gonna be.”

“Still not sure she bought it.”

“Oh, I don’t believe she did for a second. It’s still a shit lie.”

“I thought it was pretty decent, Elizabeth _Swann_ ,” he replied, emphasizing the mock surname. She narrowed her eyes.

“Do you want forgiveness or not? Because that’s not how you’re gonna did it,” she said flatly.

“I’m going to be the adult here and not rehash that argument. Anyway, they made me carried you. For two days. And you’re disturbing light. I’ve carried rum barrels heavier than you.”

“Seriously, save the dad lecture for another time.”

“Don’t think I’m going to forget it,” he said seriously. “But yeah, we found out about the trump item in the Dark One’s cell from this Henry bloke. And that apparently everyone seems to trust his information.”

“Of course, they do. That’s my oldest brother.”

“Sorry, love, you have more brothers than I can count. Forgive me if I don’t remember all of their names,” he replied sarcastically.

“I have four,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. “You’ve memorized hundreds of constellations, but you can’t remember four names? Unbelievable.”

“It’s not like they’re my family, Elizabeth.”

“Yeah, but they’re mine and I’m basically your best friend.”

“You are definitely not my best friend. Maybe I’m yours but you’re certainly not mine.”

“Oh yeah? That who is?”

There was a long pause on Jim’s end.“Felkin?”

She didn’t miss how it came out like a question. “You mean your first mate? Ummmm, no. Crew doesn’t count. They’re crew.”

“Why does crew not count?”

“Because they’re kissing your ass for favors.”

“They do not kiss my ass. My crew has tried to replace me as captain eight times. Three of them were your fault!”

“That’s because you’re a big softie. I’ve only been challenged once. Never heard a peep of rebellion since.”

“Well, that’s because your crew thinks you’re batshit fucking crazy. And they aren’t wrong.”

“Are you calling me crazy?”

“No, I’m calling you batshit fucking crazy. Huge difference.”

She pursed her lips. Normally she would have tossed a witty remark back at him by now, but she had nothing. There was a part of her that agreed with him. She wasn’t sure how long ago she and her sanity parted ways but all she knew was its absence. She was a mad dog chasing a poisoned bone and worse, she was aware of it.

“You’re not disputing it....interesting.”

“I just don’t see the point,” she replied with a heavy sigh. “This conversation changes nothing.”

He studied her for a long moment. She couldn’t help but squirm under his gaze. Jim Hawkins had the most intense pair of eyes that she had ever encounter, deep grey and piercing. Sometimes it seemed like they were capable of examining her soul.

“You’re cold,” he said after a moment.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re a liar.”

“I’m not lying,” she hissed.

“You’re always lying, Elizabeth.” His statement was followed by a tired sigh.

She turned away from him, hiding her flinching reaction to his words. It hurt more than she had imagined, a small invisible knife twisted into her gut.

There was movement on his end, but she did her best to ignore it. She didn’t want to talk anymore. However, that option became impossible as he settled right next to her, the hairs on her neck prickling at his closeness.

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping you warm,” he replied, taking his coat off her shoulders and pulling her against him. He rearranged the coat so that it was draped over both of them. Even as his warmth enveloped her, she stiffened at the contact.

“I didn’t ask you to do this."

“I would never expect you to. You enjoy making yourself miserable.”

“Fuck you, Jim.” It didn’t hold the same heat that it normally did.

“You’re most welcome, Elizabeth.” He placed a faint whisper of a kiss against her crown. “Try and get some sleep.”

“Sleep? I just woke up from a two-day impromptu nap. All thanks to you.”

“We have a long day of trekking to some super-secret Dark One dungeon tomorrow. You’re gonna need all the rest you can get,” he replied, tracing the length of her basilic vein on her right arm.

“Do you have any idea what they’re supposed to be procuring?” She asked, hating how sleepy her voice sounded. Between the warmth radiating off his body, the soothing of the soft patterns he was etching in her skin and the darkness that surrounded them, she was fighting to keep her eyes open.

“I believe a vial of squid ink.”

Beth snorted.

“I have a vial on me. If you hadn’t knocked me out, I would have been able to tell you that.”

Jim paused in his ministrations. “It’s probably for the best that you keep your squid ink to yourself, love. There’s no telling what ramifications it will have on the past.”

“You’re not gonna knock me out again, are you?”

“As long as you don’t endanger the future and yourself again. I don’t take any joy from it.”

“Sure, you don’t,” she snarked back. “You realize allowing me to use you as a portable heater doesn’t save you from my wrath, right?”

He chuckled. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”

“Good. Because I’m going to punch you in your stupidly perfect jaw.”

“Stupidly perfect?”

“It is, absurdly stupid.”

“I will take your word for it.”

“As you should,” she replied with a small yawn.

“You always try to take the last word, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

That was the last bit of conversation she remembered before shutting her eyes and snuggling into his warmth. The next thing she knew, she was being kicked awake by Mulan.

“Ouch.” Beth glared up at the warrior blearily. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a people person?”

“No.”

“Good. Because you really aren’t. You know, most people go for the gentle shake before using the boot.”

“Had to make sure the pirate wasn’t lying about you just being knocked out. Didn’t want us carrying around a corpse. They tend to get ripe after a few days.”

“I’m aware. And as you can see, I’m alive and well, thank you very much.”

“Pity. I was hoping we were finally going to get rid of some dead weight,” Mulan replied with a small grunt before turning on her heel and heading back to talk to Snow.

“Well, if that isn’t the rudest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” she muttered under her breath.

Beth glanced down at her bound hands again. In the light of day, it was now obvious how raw and blistered her skin was from being constantly tied up for the last few days. She twisted her wrists experimentally to gage the damage, hissing as one of her sore reopened and blood trickled down her forearm.

She turned to Jim, who was currently occupying himself with rearranging the items in the pockets of his giant brown leather coat.

“Hey, J. Mind doing me a solid and, you know, getting these off me?”

He didn’t look up from his work, but the length of his shoulders stiffened.

“Not sure that’s a good idea, love.”

“What do you mean it’s not a good idea?” she hissed at him.

“They may have some fleeting sense of trust towards me, but that doesn’t necessarily extend to you.”

“Well, then put in a good word for me.”

“And risk the progress I’ve made so far?”

“Jim…” There was a sense of warning in her tone. He finally looked up from the coat on his lap and fixed her with a cool look, entirely unfazed by the silent threat.

“Elizabeth.”

“Ask them to untie me.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s painful. And annoying. And is entirely pointless since I’m on their side.”

“I’m not sure I should.”

She gritted her teeth at his response. In her head, she silently counted down from ten to keep from screaming. “And why is that?”

“There’s no telling what you’ll do when you’re free.”

“I already told you. I’m gonna punch you in your stupid jaw and we’re gonna figure out how the fuck we’re going to get back home.”

“That’s not giving me a lot of incentive to help you.”

This time she didn’t hold back her frustration, letting out a loud angry noise from the back of her throat and slamming her fists against her thigh. When he merely raised his eyebrows in response, she narrowed her eyes at him before deciding to pull out the big gun.

“James Leland Hawkins.”

A look of shock flittered across his face at the sound of his given name. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, but she caught it nonetheless. There wasn’t a person alive who called him that. The one person who did was long gone, buried in a pauper’s grave back in Montressor. Beth watched as his hand immediately went into the base of his throat, fingering the heavy pendant that lay there.

“Elizabeth…”

“James. Ask them. Now.”

He was silent for a moment, fingers tracing the design etched across the silver absently.

“A 'please' would go along way. Manners do maketh man.”

“In the words of Eowyn, I’m no man,” she retorted.

“Sex-wise, you are not but I highly doubt you were raised without manners.”

“Do you realize my father was a pirate, right?”

“So you keep reminding us all,” he responded with a sarcastic smile. “A 'please' won’t kill you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’m getting quite tired of this game. You want my help, you will ask me properly instead of demanding it of me like a spoiled child.”

She nearly flinched at his tone, but schooled her expression. She wanted to argue against his “spoiled child” comment but it wouldn’t get her anywhere. Her fingers twitched as sh felt another compulsion to run them through her hair.

“Would you ask them to untie me… _please_?”

“That wasn’t hard, was it?”

She merely gave him a sardonic smile in response. He chuckled humorlessly before standing and placing his coat on her lap, dusting dirt off his trousers.

“I’ll go talk to your mother,” he said. Despite his words, he didn’t move from his spot. He stared at her, waiting for something. It took her a moment to realize what exactly he wanted from her.

She let out a heavy sigh and rolled her eyes. “Thank you.”

“Manners, Elizabeth, go long way.”

“Seriously, the dad routine is getting old.”

“Not your father but growing up would do you a world of good,” he replied calmly before turning on his heel and walking back towards where Emma and Snow were packing up.

“I am grown up,” she muttered petulantly under her breath as she watched him talk to her not-yet-mother and grandmother.

Jim had a gift for diplomacy that Beth lacked. Where she was skilled at inciting riots and taking things by deception, Jim could assuage even the most heated of debates. He knew what to say and had saved her ass from the fire more times than she could count.

With that being said, Emma and Snow did not look impressed by his arguments. Beth had long since become an excellent study in her mother’s expressions and the one she currently was wearing did not bode well. It was generally the look she got whenever Wes had made something explode and was trying to talk his way out of trouble. On top of that, Snow had taken her “I’m not buying this bullshit” stance, arms crossed in front of her chest and left foot tapping impatiently.

Beth caught Emma’s eye over his shoulder and a sense of panic she hadn’t felt since she was a teenager took hold of her. She wanted to look away but she froze. Emma pushed Jim out of her way even as he continued talking, heading straight towards her with a determined set to her jaw. She stopped a few feet in front of her.

“You’ve been telling me half-truths since the beginning,” Emma said shortly. “Tell me one thing that isn’t bullshit.”

“I have no intention in harming you,” she replied. “Ever.”

“You want us to let you go. Why should we?”

“I can help.”

Emma narrowed her eyes at her like she didn’t believe her. She crouched down on her knees so that she could look Beth straight in the eye. She pulled out her sword and laid it across her palm. If she was trying to intimidate her, she was failing miserably. If Beth lunged forward for her weapon, Emma wouldn’t have time to hold it correctly.

“I’m going to ask you a series of questions. If you lie, I’m not just gonna keep you tied up, I’m going to tie you to a tree and leave you behind. Understood?”

“Crystal.”

“What is your name? Your real name this time.”

“Elizabeth. That wasn’t a lie. Though some know me by my more colorful moniker. Black Beth.”

“That’s original,” Emma replied sarcastically. “Pirate nicknames don’t seem creative. Captain Hook. Black Beth. Let me guess, your buddy back there is Grey Eyed Jack. Now, what do you want?”

“For you to set me loose.”

“Not what I asked.” Emma narrowed her eyes at her.

“Pardon me but that is what you asked and I answered honestly.”

“Don’t be a smart ass. What do you want most in the world?”

“To kill the bitch who murdered the man I loved. But right now, I would settle to getting back to where I belong.”

“And where is that?”

“My ship.”

“Where is your ship?”

“Far, far, far away from here.”

“And how do you plan on getting to your ship?” Emma responded, gripping her sword now.

“I have absolutely no fucking idea.”

“Do you plan to steal the compass to get back to it?”

Beth blinked. Using the compass hadn’t even crossed her mind. Would it work for time travel as well as it would for inter-realm travel? She had absolutely no idea but she refused to follow that line of thought. Her parents needed that compass to go back to Storybrooke. If she took it for her own, there was no telling if they would be able to get back to where they were needed and who knew what effects that would have on the future.

“No. I’m not sure it would work for my purposes.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because you took us prisoner. I’m not sure if you remember but you’ve kinda been dragging us over God’s green earth against our will. I was perfectly content to part ways without bloodshed.”

“Final question. Are you in league with Cora?”

“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with her.”

“The Queen of Hearts? The Evil Queen’s mother? Witch bitch extraordinaire? That ringing any bells?”

“Vaguely but no. I have never met the woman in my life.”

Emma studied her a moment before yanking Beth’s waists forward. She took the sword and began a rough sawing motion with it that made Beth’s arms shake.

“If you pull anything, we will end you.”

“Duly noted.”

Beth grinned as the rope loosened and she took a moment to touch each wrist gingerly. There was an impressive amount of damage on both wrists, but nothing that a little rum and cloth couldn’t patch up. Immediately her eyes cut over to Jim who had been watching mother and future daughter interact. She pushed his jacket off her lap.

“Excuse me for a moment,” she said briskly to Emma as she got up. “I have some unfinished business.”

Rising to her feet, she made an immediate beeline over to Jim. A knowing look crossed his face but he didn’t move, not even an inch, as Beth rolled up her sleeve and hit him with a closed fist. He didn’t stumble as much as take a step back, giving her an annoyed look as he gingerly touched his jaw to assess the damage. Mulan immediately turned her sword on her and Snow strung her bow but Beth paid them no mind.

“That was a warning,” she said to him a low tone. “Do that to me ever again and I will cut off your balls.”

He scoffed quietly but nodded nonetheless, eyes cutting to where two women had drawn their weapons.

“Relax ladies,” he said, tracing his fingers over the growing bruise. “I knew that was coming. Everything is good. And now that we have that settled, I suggest we move while we still have daylight to burn.”

“He’s right,” Mulan said gruffly, only letting down her guard slightly. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Well then, I suggest we make our way to the Cave of Wonders,” Beth snorted. She mentally kicked herself as Emma and Snow stared at her funnily. She was going to have to watch herself when it came to the pop culture references. She was on thin ice as it was.

She reached for her sword belt to make sure her weapon was secure only to remember she didn’t have it. A heavy sigh escaped her lips as she turned to Mulan.

“My effects, please.”

Mulan snorted in response. “Emma might have freed you, but that doesn’t mean we’re stupid enough to arm you. Be glad you’re not getting dragged.”

Jim chuckled and placed a warm hand on her shoulder. There was a warm amusement in his eyes that Beth couldn’t find it in herself to appreciate.

“Don’t worry, love, I’ll save you for any danger about.”

“My hero,” she replied sarcastically.

The trek to Rumpelstiltskin’s former cell wasn’t nearly as long as Beth had expected. When Jim had told her to rest for a long journey, she had been expecting it to last for days. They made it to the inconspicuous dark dungeon in a matter of hours. The entrance to it was well hidden in the barely noticeable fissure within a cave and Beth had to give her grandparents props - without some prior knowledge of its existence, she wouldn’t have ever guessed where to find it.

“Well, this is certainly macabre,” she commented lowly to Jim as they made their way through the dark.

“Did you expect them to keep the Dark One in a regular cell?”

“No, but this...” She couldn’t find the words.

“Well, what did you expect? Them to keep an evil and highly dangerous wizard in a banquet hall with printed wallpaper and frilly window curtains?” He replied, raising an eyebrow at her.

“No, but this is...less humane than I was expecting.”

“Dungeons are dungeons, no matter who owns them. I thought that’s something you would have known by now. Considering how familiar you are with them.”

“Cute,” she snorted.

They stopped at the end of a long crooked hallway. Snow lit the lamps hanging against the cavern walls, revealing a large open cell. Mulan and Aurora immediately entered it, fanatically searching for the squid ink.

“Huh. Rumpelstiltskin’s cell. I haven’t been here since before Regina’s curse. This is where he told us you were going to be the Savior,” Snow said with a small sigh.

“How charming,” Beth remarked sarcastically without thinking.

Both women turned to glare at her. She held up her hands in her surrender.

“Apologies. Go back to your delightful reminiscing.”

“He knew?” Emma asked Snow, turning her attention away from Beth.

“Oh, it was prophesized,” Snow replied with a smile before stepping forward. “Come on.”

Both women stepped forward to join the other two women into the cell. Beth remained behind, watching them. Jim stood behind her, close enough that the lapels of his coat brushed against her back.

“You okay?” He asked quietly.

“This is where it all begun...” she said after a moment. “The whole fucking crazy shebang started here. Imagine what would have happened if the Crocodile hadn’t told them that my mother was the Savior?”

“Best not to dwell on what ifs, love. I find it rarely leads to happiness.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “We should help them.”

“I thought you were advocating non-interference.”

“I hardly think our assistance here would do much damage.”

“If you say so, time travel expert,” she replied, turning her head to give him a humorless grin.

Jim rolled his eyes at her, removing his hand from her shoulder and pushing past her to join the others in their search of Rumpelstiltskin’s cell. Beth watched them warily. It didn’t seem like their efforts were making much progress. She fingered the bottle of squid ink in her pocket that she had kept on hand for Circe.

“The squid ink...it’s not here,” Aurora shouted fanatically.

“Gold said we would find it here,” Snow said. Beth could hear the underlying panic and anger in her voice.

“Well, was there anyone else in here with him? Could they have taken the ink?” Mulan asked, a pinch of worry in her brow.

“No. He was kept alone. Visitors were forbidden,” Snow replied. “He was too dangerous to allow any human contact.”

“How’d he keep from going crazy?” Emma asked absently as she began her search of the walls.

Beth nearly snorted at the question. As long as she had known Gold, there had always been a twinge of madness to him lingering underneath the cold polite facade. She didn’t have much interaction with him, her father had vehemently warned her from interacting with the Dark One but sometimes it couldn’t be helped. She and her brothers had grown up with Gideon and that had meant some occasional interaction. He had always looked at her oddly, as if he was trying to examine her insides. She had heeded her father’s words and avoided him as much as possible.

“He didn’t,” Aurora said grimly as she pulled something from the wall. It was a roll of old weather parchment. Almost immediately everyone crowded around her as she unrolled.

“What is it?” Snow asked.

“Is that a message?” Emma frowned.

“Yes,” Aurora answered, smoothing out the scroll so that they could all read it. “I think it’s for you...”

A shiver went down Beth’s spine as she read its contents. She had never been so disturbed in her entire life. It was her mother’s name written over and over again.

“That is the fucking creepiest thing I’ve ever seen,” she commented, taking a step back.

Jim placed a hand on her back in an attempt to soothe her but she remained tense, her eyes never leaving the parchment. An uncomfortable heavy feeling settled in her gut.

Emma snatched the parchment out of Aurora’s hands. She looked just as shook up as Beth felt. She collapsed on the floor, clutching it with white knuckles. Beth honestly couldn’t blame her for her reaction. She was silent as she regarded it and everyone backed away, trying to give her some space. Mulan and Aurora went back to their searching.

“What does this even mean?” Emma asked distractedly.

“You mean aside from the fact he’s obviously psychotic?” Beth said.

“He was obsessed with you,” Snow replied. “You were the key to breaking the curse.”

“And yet you told him your daughter’s name? What did you think would happen? Did you honestly think it would be something as innocent as a monogrammed blanket for the Christening?” Beth asked her future grandmother incredulously.

Snow merely glared at her in response but Beth didn’t pay her much mind. The hand on her back tensed.

“Beth...I don’t think your commentary is going to be appreciated in this situation,” Jim said lowly.

Before she could make a reply, Aurora cut her off with a huff. She tugged on her cloak and turned to face the rest of them with a sour expression.

“We’ve looked everywhere. There’s no ink in this cell,” she declared, frustration evident on her face.

“Well, it has to be. He told David...” Snow responded, looking more frantically around the cell.

“You were in a netherworld,” Emma responded. “Maybe something got lost in translation?”

“No,” Mulan said, picking up something out of a small crevice in the cave world. “She heard right.”

“You found it?” Snow asked, sounding excited.

Mulan gave them a grim look as she outstretched her hand. In her palm was an empty ink bottom. Every one of them let out a disappointed sigh. Beth privately slipped her hand back in her pocket, once more fingering the bottle of squid ink she had.

“Son of a bitch!” Emma exclaimed, shoulders sagging.

Aurora turned violently. She let out a loud grunt as she tossed a rock towards the switch, which operated the cell door. Beth was mildly impressed with the princess’s aim. She wasn’t even sure that her younger brother could make such an accurate throw and he was much more athletic than Aurora.

“What are you doing?” Emma exclaimed, rushing forward to try and stop the cell gate from going down.

“Helping me.”

An older woman sauntered out from the shadows and into the light. She smirked at them, flicking her wrist with an air of nonchalance. The compass in Emma’s grasp vanished and reappeared in the woman’s hand. Beth had no doubt in her mind who this woman was. She could see some of Regina and Zelena’s features on her face.

Cora.

“No!” Emma shouted, shaking the bars.

“Don’t waste your energy, dear,” Cora said with a condescending smile. “Rumpelstiltskin himself couldn’t escape from this cell. It’s enchanted. Thank you, Aurora. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Beth immediately turned to study the princess, shocked that the other woman could pull off such a double cross. Aurora stood stiffly with a blank expression on her face. It was an expression Beth knew well.

“How could you?” Snow asked, looking betrayed.

“She couldn’t help it,” Beth commented, shaking her head. “She doesn’t have her heart.”

Emma whipped her head to look at her.

“What do you mean?”

“Well spotted,” Cora complimented, eyes glittering coldly. “She was only doing what she was told.”

She opened her cloak and pulled out Aurora’s heart, holding it up mockingly. The action reminded Beth of Circe’s taunting. Her hands curled into tight fists.

“How did you know?” Emma asked, looking at Beth accusingly.

“I happen to be very familiar with the mannerisms of someone operating without a heart and when their heart is being held by someone else,” she replied in an almost hollow tone. “Only experience though. I had nothing to do with this.”

Seemingly satisfied with her answer, Emma returned her attention back to Cora.

“Why would you take her heart?”

“Actually,” a familiar voice called. “I did. It was a gift.”

Beth could feel her blood pressure spike as her father made his presence known. She hadn’t noticed him before, the black of his clothing blending well into the shadows. He was looking at his future wife with a look of disdain. All the color drained from Emma’s face. Beth sympathized. Her insides felt cold. This man wasn’t her father. He wore his face, he had his voice but it couldn’t be him. Beth’s father was warm, gentle and caring. This man was callous. Evil. She squeezed her eyes shut, clutching at the hook necklace around her neck and wishing upon all the stars in the sky that this nightmare would end.

The wicked smile on Cora’s face and she squeezed the pulsing heart in her grasp. Aurora let out a cry of pain, crumbling to the floor. Mulan and Snow immediately rushed to her side.

“Forgive us,” she said lightly, not sounding apologetic at all. “We’d love to stay but Storybrooke awaits.”

Cora then turned on her heel and walked away. The man that was supposed to be Beth’s father peeled off the wall and turned as well. It felt like a thousand knives to watch him follow the witch like a loyal lap dog.

“Hook...Wait...” Emma’s voice was pleading.

The man using her father’s moniker stopped. He looked impatient as he waited for Emma to continue. It didn’t seem to bother him that he was leaving her behind in a cell. The man Beth knew loved Emma Swan more than anything. She had grown up on stories of the countless times her parents had sacrificing everything and anything to be with each other.

“Please don’t do this. My son is in Storybrooke. He needs me.”

Emma’s pleas seemed to only irritate him more. He glared at her, stepping towards her and stabbing a finger in her direction.

“Perhaps you should’ve considered that before you abandoned me on that beanstalk!” With each word that left his mouth, he seemed to get angrier and angrier.

“You would’ve done the same,” Emma replied.

Beth visibly flinched at her reply. No. She wanted to scream at them. Killian Jones would never leave Emma Swan behind. And Emma would never leave Killian. He was supposed to follow her until the end of time and she was supposed to go to hell and back for him. They weren’t supposed to abandon each other. They weren’t supposed to hate each other. They were supposed to be True Loves. That was all wrong.

She was going to be sick.

Hook stepped closer to the cell, jaw clenched. He leaned forward and spoke in a voice that was so angry that it was soft. Beth had only heard him use that tone once before and that was after her brother got arrested for stealing August's bike.

“Actually, no.” He regarded her coldly before pulling something from his pocket. Beth had to squint to see it properly. It looked like a black bean attached to a chain. “Do you know what this is, Emma?”

“The bean that the giant kept,” she answered numbly before reaching for it desperately.

Hook pulled it away from her, tsking at her like he was scolding a naughty child.

“Yes, indeed,” he replied with a cold smile that looked so wrong on his face. “A pirate always keeps a souvenir of his conquest, but this...well, this is much more than a mere ticket. This is a symbol...something that was once magical, full of hope, possibility. Mm…Now look at it. Dried up, dead, useless. Much like you.”

Beth shook her head trying to shake the words out of her skull. This was wrong. All wrong. Hot tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. Her parents loved each other. Her father would never be so cruel as to say this to her mother.

“The time for making deals is done, just as I’m done with you,” he concluded. A cheerless smile contorted on his face as he stepped away from the cell.

This was wrong. This was not how the story was supposed to go. Beth pushed away from Jim’s hold, rushing towards the bars of the cell with a sense of desperation. Emma looked startled by her actions but Beth wasn’t paying attention to her; she was focused on the man who was supposed to be her hero.

“Killian Jones!” she shouted. “You are better than this!”

His eyes widened at the use of his name, looking stunned. His shock was quickly replaced with a look of a fury that surpassed his previous anger. He squared his shoulders, stalking towards her. Though there was bars between them, she felt the urge to step back. She refrained however, bristling and meeting his gaze.

“I don’t know who you are and frankly, I don’t give a damn,” he said in a calm, almost conversational tone. “But, little girl, make no mistake, there is only one thing I despise more than cowards and that is hypocrites like you.”

“What?”

“Wearing a flashy coat and wielding a sword doesn’t make you a pirate, love,” he continued. “You know nothing and you are nothing - nothing more than a spoiled welp chasing her father’s coattails. A word of advice, love, go home. Go back to your dresses, your jewels and your pretty things. Forget your revenge. You’re obviously not cut out for it. You don’t have what it takes.”

“You’re so wrong,” she replied. “You have no idea who I am.”

“I don’t need to.” He tilted his head to the side as he regarded her, an unpleasant smile on his lips. “From what I see, you’re just a silly little girl playing pretend. Wake up, love, while you still can because the next time we meet...I won’t be so generous.”

He gave her a slow deliberate mocking bow before finally turning to follow Cora out of the dungeon.

Beth staggered back, feeling like he had physically slapped her. She closed her eyes, turning to hold back her tears.

“Beth...” Jim stepped forward.

“Don’t,” she said sharply. “Just don’t.”

She let out a heavy breath, trying to regain composure but failing miserably. There were very few people who were capable of wounding her so deeply and her father was on the top of that list. She kept telling herself that the man who had cut her down so soundly wasn’t actually her father but his words kept replaying in her head.

“Elizabeth...”

“Just drop it!” She snapped. “I’m fine!”

“You obviously aren’t.”

Her hands curled into tight fists, nails digging into the skin of her palms. She knew that he was pestering her out of concern but it wasn’t her style to accept pity while licking her wounds. She didn’t want platitudes. She wanted to hit something and scream.

“If you have any true affection for me at all, you will leave me alone right now.”

“What the hell just happened?” Mulan snapped.

“None of your fucking business.”

“It is our business if you’re involved with Hook. He took Aurora’s heart!”

“Is that literally the only thing you care about? Because I’m telling you right now, sister, we have bigger problems to worry about than your girlfriend!” Beth snapped.

Mulan pulled out her sword, drawing it on her. Beth sneered at her in response, fingers twitching and knees bending so she could reach for the small knife in her boot. It wasn’t good odds but she had faced worst. Jim placed a hand on her shoulder again.

“Elizabeth, think about this...”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Everyone stop!” Snow stood between Mulan and Beth with a furious expression on her face. It was very clear that she was beyond done with their arguing. “Fighting amongst ourselves solves nothing.”

“No, but it will make me feel better,” Beth muttered under her breath.

Mulan sheathed her sword but gave her a hard look before turning to attend to Aurora. Snow’s shoulders relaxed as she walked off but she turned to look at Beth with a hard look.

“With that being said, I don’t trust you. She’s right. I don’t know who you are but whatever... thing... you have with that pirate? It’s bad news.”

“Is this the part where I’m supposed to be insulted? Tell you my sob story? Beg for your trust? Braid hair and play bonding games while we slowly starve to death? I’ll pass.”

Snow made a disgusted noise in response, throwing her hands up in frustration and turning her attention to Emma who had been ignoring all of them in favor of trying to pry the bars of the cell open.

“We aren’t going to break it down, Emma. It was enchanted to hold Rumpelstiltskin. We don’t have a chance.”

“This is my fault,” Aurora said miserably, burying her head in her hands.

“No, it’s mine,” Mulan replied, shaking her head. “Cora stole your heart because I failed to protect you.”

She placed a hand on her back and began rubbing soothing circles. For all of her hardness with Beth, Mulan was soft with Aurora. If Beth was the sentimental type she would have found the display touching.

Emma seemed to have a similar line of thought with her because she turned to look at them grimly.

“That’s very sweet but it’s my fault,” she said, plopping down on the ground and leaning against one of the cave walls. “I’m the Savior and I’m not doing much saving, am I?”

“A bit of a martyr complex there,” Jim muttered under his breath.

Beth didn’t respond. She stared at Emma, heart in her throat. She had never seen her look so unsure of herself. For all long as she could remember, her mother had been a strong, powerful and self-assured presence. She held authority as easy as breathing and Beth had always admired her for it. It was so strange to see her so dejected.

Snow sat down next to Emma with a small encouraging smile on her face. At least some things didn’t change.

“We’re going to win this fight, you know,” she said confidently. “Good always defeats evil.”

Beth couldn’t help it. She snorted loudly. Snow whipped her head in her direction, eyes narrowing in anger.

“Oh, go ahead,” she said sourly. “Get it out of your system. Come on, give us that oh so witty comment you’re just dying to say.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it witty as much as truthful,” Beth replied, crossing her arms in front of her chest and meeting Snow’s angry gaze. “It’s just...that sentence is so naïve.”

“Beth...” Jim’s voice held some warning to it. “Come on now...”

“No,” she said violently, shaking her head. “She needs to hear this. I’m just so tired of it. It’s just bullshit. It’s all bullshit. I grew up on that shit, that hope-y change-y nonsense and that good always wins and that True Love literally can solve world hunger and bring world peace and if you want something hard enough you can have it. It’s just shit. It’s all shit.”

“It is not!” Snow snapped back.

“It is!” Beth spat, stepping forward and glaring at her. “Not all fairy stories end in happily ever after. Sometimes evil wins. Sometimes the hero doesn’t get the girl...or the boy...or even the fucking dog. Sometimes there isn’t a white wedding and cake and unicorns with rainbows and a big bouncy baby in a carriage.” Her voice cracked. “Sometimes there isn’t even a goodbye. And sometimes there isn’t even a body to bury....”

“Sometimes you’re alone in prison pregnant and penniless at seventeen,” Emma said softly. “And sometimes you wait two years in Tallahassee for someone who was never gonna come...”

Beth and Emma made eye contact across the cell. For the first time since this whole fiasco started, Beth felt a connection with her mother; not a familial bond but one between two broken and hardened women who had become disillusioned by the world.

“You’re wrong! You’re both wrong!” Snow shook her head, looking at Emma pleadingly. “You should know better than anybody, Emma. You broke the curse.”

“And what have I done since then? I got us stranded here, burned down the wardrobe, let Cora get the ash and now, the compass. The only reason I ever broke the curse was because it was exactly what Gold wanted me to do. I had nothing to do with it.”

“What are you talking about?” Snow looked somewhere between confused and distressed.

“He told you I was the Savior...it was his plan. Once I fulfilled that role, maybe that’s all I was ever meant to do. Everything I’ve ever done...He had it all mapped out before I was even born...I’m not powerful...”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Beth said, shaking her head. “I mean, you might be trapped here but you pack quite the punch.”

“You’ve been unconscious for two days,” Emma replied flatly.

“Yeah. But I call them like I see them.”

“Look, it’s weirdly nice of you to say that but I’m nothing. You’re all about being real and talking about life sucking, but this stupid paper here proves that I’m nothing more than a name. I’m a pawn in a sick game!”

“Even pawns can become queens.”

“I thought that was checkers, not chess,” Jim remarked lightly.

“You’re thinking of kinging but it is possible to make a pawn act like a queen in chess. Trust me, I know my shit. I used to play chess all the time when I was a kid. Wasn’t very good but I played a lot.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Jim chuckled. “Chess involves strategy and you can’t make a proper plan to save your life.”

“I’m an improviser, not a planner. That’s your job.”

“We can’t just sit around here and do nothing!” Aurora said. “There has to be another way out of here!”

“As much as I would like to agree with you, I’m not sure there is,” Mulan said. “There’s only two ways to open this door - the lever that you hit with the rock and the squid ink that dried up ages ago...”

Beth’s eyes lit up and she reached into her pocket, slowly pulling out one of the vials of squid ink she had. She hid the vial in the inner fold of her cuff. She was positive there wasn’t another vial of squid ink laying around but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t pretend there was.

“Aurora’s right. We’re going to find a way to get out of here,” Snow said firmly.

“How? By staring at that creepy scroll?” Emma asked, raising her eyebrows sarcastically. “It’s not like its going to magically open a door for us.”

Snow opened her mouth to respond, but Beth cut her off.

“I think I see something!” She shouted, pointing at a small crack in the wall.

She immediately ran towards it, not giving them enough time to investigate. She pressed her hand into the crack, pretending to feel around. She pulled the vial out of her cuff, standing up and presenting it to the others.

“Aurora was right...there was another vial...”

Emma stood up, staring at her in disbelief. Snow and Mulan exchanged confused glances.

“You just pulled that from the wall?”

“Yes,” Beth lied.

“The wall we searched several times and didn’t find anything before?”

“We must have overlooked it.”

“Can I see it?” Emma asked, still frowning.

Beth handed her the vial. She examined it for a moment before handing it off to Snow.

“Is that the real stuff?”

“It appears to be,” Snow replied, uncorking it and giving it a sniff. She immediately blanched and held it away from her body. “It smells like it too.”

She tossed the bottle at the cell door and Beth watched in fascination as the ink transformed into a black mist and the bars began to disintegrate.

“That’s wicked,” she exclaimed.

“Told you,” Snow said, smiling over her shoulder. “Good always wins.”

Beth moved forward, ready to leave the cell when a sword was pressed against her back. She paused, turning to face Emma who wasn’t smiling. She held her weapon to Beth’s throat with a stern expression.

“Where do you think you’re going?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, hi. I haven't updated this story in like six months but I've been working on it, I promise. I'm sorry to everyone who was waiting for this story to finish but I promise the end is in sight. I also apologize because there's going to be a lot of pain in this chapter. Please note there is only an epilogue left. Feel free to yell at me here or on Tumblr.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The question made Beth’s blood run cold. Her lips parted in effort to make a response, but no words came. She closed them briefly, assessing Emma’s expression. It was the furthest thing from friendly. 

“Leaving?” 

Emma held the sword higher until the tip brushed against the delicate skin of her throat. She fought the sudden urge to step back, her pride overriding her sense of survival. Beth Jones did not run from swords. She met them head on, even with death on the line.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not? What have I done?” She asked, fighting to keep her voice steady.

Never in her life had her mother raised a sword at her before this nightmare had begun. Not even when she was still learning as a child. Her mother hadn’t been involved much with her lessons, content to leave her training to her father and grandfather. Only occasionally she offered some advice or corrected her form. It was more than a little unnerving now to see her mother pointing a weapon at her, especially knowing that this version had no idea who she was threatening her own daughter and would have no issue striking her down.

“Do you remember what I said to you before?” Emma asked in a hard tone. 

Beth didn’t answer, eyes caught between the hard look on her mother’s face and the sword pointed at her throat. She felt Jim stand behind her, tensed and hand at the helm of his sword no doubt. If it had been anyone else holding a sword to hear throat, Beth knew that this conversation wouldn’t be happening. He would have struck Emma the second she raised her weapon.

 “I said that the second you told a lie that I would tie you up and leave you behind,” Emma answered. “And you just told a lie.”

 “When?”

 “About the squid ink. I don’t know who you are, but I know I can’t trust you.”

 “I just helped you…” Her voice cracked. She bristled internally at her own weakness.

 “Maybe but to what end?” Emma replied, unmoved. “We know absolutely nothing about you. You might not be in league with Cora but that doesn’t mean you aren’t up to no good. I can’t take that chance.”

 “Beth…” Jim shifted behind her again, no doubt bracing himself in preparation for a fight. She knew just from the tone of his voice that he was asking for her lead on the situation. She balled her fists in frustration. In any other situation, her choice would have been simple. She was a fighter. She answered things with steel and her fists when she didn’t like how things were going. She never hesitated to raise her sword and hoist her banners. It was one of the reasons she made a good captain and why her crew followed her without question.

Except she was hesitating now. She knew why. It didn’t matter how much violence and mayhem sang in her blood, she couldn’t raise a sword against her mother. Ever. 

Not taking her eyes off of Emma, she stretched out her arm so that Jim had a clear view of her hand and pressed her pointer finger to her thumb; making a clear and undisputed signal to stand down. Jim made a startled noise, breath sucking through his teeth. She understood all too well his mindset. In the entirety of their two-year partnership, she had never surrendered.

 “Elizabeth?” There was a small quiver in his voice. She didn’t know better would say he sounded shaken.

 “Yield. Even if she kills me.” She looked Emma straight in the eye. “It’s almost funny how wrong you are about me.”

 “Like I said, I can’t take the chance.”

Beth swallowed, giving her mother a curt nod as Mulan took hold of one of her wrists and shackled it. The steel bit into the ravaged skin but the pain barely registered in comparison to the absolute feeling of betrayal curling tight in her stomach. Emma wouldn’t look at her, in fact it seemed like she was making a point to look anywhere but at Beth’s face.

“Why is it that every decision you’ve made as lead to us being in chains?” Jim asked sourly, shaking his chained wrist at her.

 “Shut up.”

 “Seriously, I don’t know why I defer to you on these decisions. I’m the bloody negotiator.”

 “Jim, please,” she hissed, giving him a warning look before turning her attention back to Emma. “You’re seriously going to leave us here in this creepy dungeon?”

“What part of that are you not getting?”

“The part where you’re supposed to be the good guys.”

Emma froze at her biting words before she turned, walking directly into her personal space; uncomfortably close. Her green eyes flashed dangerously but Beth refused to falter, lifting her chin up in defiance.

“Listen to me and listen to me good. I’m not here to be a hero. I didn’t ask to be the Savior or to be Rumpelstiltskin’s puppet. All I want is to get back home and get back to my son. Nothing else matters. Not even you.”

They aren’t the harshest nor the cruelest words that had ever been spoke to her, but they hit her like a physical slap in the face. She stumbled backwards in Jim, biting her lips to keep the raw emotion quelling inside her at bay. Emma paid her no mind, already moved on to the next thing while Jim placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“We’re leaving,” Emma announced, straightening out her red jacket as she addressed her companions.

“Wait! I can’t go!” Aurora shouted, looking distressed. “You have to leave me behind.”

 “No way,” Mulan responded, grabbing her arm tightly giving her stern look. “I’m not leaving you behind. Especially not with the filthy pirates!”

 “How how many times do I have to tell you that we bath just as much as you do, if not more?” Beth snapped back, scowling. 

“A clean body doesn’t make up for a filthy mind and a dark heart.”

“You know nothing of my heart.”

“I don’t have,” Mulan replied. “I’ve seen your kind before. You use your beauty and your charm to con people into liking you, but no amount of beauty can make up for the ugliness inside of you.”

“Stop engaging with them,” Emma interrupted before turning back to Aurora. “Though, I agree. It’s not a good idea to leave you behind especially with them. They’re dangerous.”

“And so am I,” Aurora replied stubbornly. “I can’t be trusted. Not as long as Cora has my heart.”

Emma nodded curtly, sharing a look with Snow. “How are we going to do this?”

“I guess we shackle her as well,” Snow responded, nodding her head towards a pile of chains nearby.

“Chain her up and leave her defenseless against the pirates!?” Mulan squawked, looking incredibly displeased. “Are you kidding me? They will kill her as soon as they’re able.”

 “Oh please, we could care less about Princess Purple,” Beth snorted.

None of the women paid her any attention, causing her to roll her eyes. Jim leaned back against the cave wall, scowling; the hand resting on Beth’s shoulder squeezed harshly. She kicked him in response, not looking at him.

“The gate’s coming back,” Snow commented, gesturing to the steel bars that seemed to be growing from the ceiling.

“I thought the squid ink got rid of them!” Emma shouted in alarm.

“Squid ink only temporarily stalls magic. It doesn’t destroy it. We need to get out of here!”

“I’m not leaving her without Aurora!” Mulan hissed, standing her ground. The princess placed her hand on top of Mulan’s, giving her a soft pleading look. 

“I’ll be fine. With the gate coming back down, I’ll just stay here. They can’t hurt me if they’re chained up and I’m not…”

Mulan’s eyes cut between the remerging metal bars and Aurora’s face. She let out a long-suffering sigh before taking the bag of weapons and shoving it into Aurora’s hands.

“Here, I don’t trust them, but you should be able to defend yourself with these while I’m gone. I’m going to come back for you, Aurora, and I’m going to come back with your heart.”

Aurora gave her a grateful look, clutching the weapons to her chest. “Oh, Mulan.”

“Hey, we gotta go! The gate is coming down!” Emma shouted impatiently as she ducked under the bars.

 “Good luck,” Aurora said quietly, giving the other woman a small smile.

“Thank you. Good luck to you too.” Mulan returned it with a soft look of her own.

She reached out as if to brush the stray strand of hair out of Aurora’s face, but she faltered, deciding against it. She gave the princess an apologetic look before ducking under the bars and following Emma and Snow out of the dungeon. Aurora watched her longingly as they walked away, jumping at the harsh sound of the gate fully returning and trapping her in with Jim and Beth.

 “Holy shit,” Beth muttered, giving Jim a sidelong glance. “You weren’t kidding, this entire crisis has been a giant lesbian soap opera."

“Is that really what you’re focusing on right now?” Jim asked, giving her an unimpressed look.

 “Yeah. It’s the only thing that’s entertaining. Everything else kinda sucks.”

“Really, Elizabeth? I wasn’t aware,” he replied sarcastically.

“Don’t get cranky with me,” she muttered. “It’s not my fault.”

“No, Elizabeth, it is your fault. I told you not to meddle! I told you not interfere! But what do you do? The exact opposite! You just go and meddle! And now we're stuck here! Honestly, do you even listen to the words that leave my mouth? Actually, no. Don’t answer that. I know the answer. I’m just a talking head to you! Might as well blow air out of my ass.”

“Are you quite finished?” She asked, arching an eyebrow. “Or do you just going to continue complaining while I try to get us the fuck out of here?”

“And how do you suggest that? What oh so clever idea do you have this time? Because I don’t know if you’ve realized this yet, but we are shackled and stuck in a magical cell in a creepy dungeon far, far, far away from home. Please, enlighten me, how are we going to out of this one?”

“I think I might have a bobby pin…” she replied, digging into her one of her various pockets with her free hand. When she could find nothing that felt like metal, she moved onto another pocket. After searching through three different pockets, she grew more irritated, silently cursing her own lack of organization.

“Those bloody little devil pins of yours? You honestly think that’s going to work?”

“Well, they work on my mother’s cuffs, so I’m holding that the Enchanted Forest uses the same mechanisms,” she replied with a shrug.

“Pardon? Your mother’s cuffs?”

“Yeah, I’ve been arrested more than a few times before we met,” she said, still searching her pockets.

“You were still teenager when we met…”

“Yup. And the first time, I was arrested I was fourteen. It wasn’t a big deal. My grandfather was just pissed that my brother and I stole some fireworks and set them off in the woods…we may have caused a minor fire…” she responded distractedly.

“You are absolute disaster of a human being.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she said, pulling out a bobby pin and grinning. “Score!”

“What are you doing?” Aurora asked, tentatively making her way over to their side of the cell. Her head tilted to side as she regarded them nervously, clutching the weapons bag so tightly that her knuckles were blanched.

“Escaping a set of ancient ass handcuffs with a bobby pin,” she replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “Want to watch?” 

Aurora’s eyes widened in alarm. “You can do that?” 

“Oh, there’s a lot of things I can do,” she smirked. “Just watch.” 

“I don’t think you should be doing that. I should be stopping you.” 

Beth placed the bobby pin between her teeth, regarding the princess with a raised eyebrow. “What? You think can actually stop me?”

Aurora wavered, looking nervous. “Yes?”

“Was a question?”

“No! I can totally stop you!”

Beth snorted, nibbling the plastic balls off the bobby pin and spitting them out. “No offense, but I would like to see you try…”

Aurora waivered, her shoulders wilting in defeat. Beth smirked at her before manipulating the metal so that the end bent into a subtle curve. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as Jim hovered over her shoulder. She gave him an annoyed glance, but he just raised his eyebrows at her in a challengingly manner. She just sighed and went to work.

“There’s a trick to this…” she murmured under her breath. “You see, you can’t put it all the way or else it’s gonna jam…you gotta feel around the edges and once you feel the nook…you press, shift and…”

Click.

She looked up at Aurora and Jim with a grin, as the shackle came off. She tossed the bobby pin to the aside before pulling out another one and worrying it with her mouth.

“How many of those bloody things do you have?”

“A lot. They’re a girl’s best friend.”

“They’re all over my ship. I found one in my bed once. Had a crick in my back for days.”

“What exactly are they?” Aurora asked, watching her work in fascination. 

“Bobby pins. We use them to hold hair in place mainly because hair spray and hair ties just don’t cut it, but you can use them for a lot of things, I mean, I use them for clothes…nail holders…fish hooks…pitting olives…as sewing helper… as bag clippers and, well, for picking locks. Pretty handy buggers.”

A grin of satisfaction spread over Beth’s face as Jim’s shackle went clattering to the ground. He massaged his wrist, giving her a sarcastic smile.

“Excellent work, Elizabeth. Now, pray tell…how are we going to get out of the cell? I’m assuming that was your only bottle of squid ink left.”

“Please! You honestly think I would go after Circe with just one bottle of squid ink? There’s plenty more where that came from…on my ship.” 

“Right,” Jim sighed, raking his hands through his thick ash blonde hair. “I only have two things to say in response to that. One, that’s not helpful. Two, she’s not your ship.” 

“The Jolly’s mine. I stole her fair and square.”

“You stole a ship?” Aurora asked, looking at her in aghast.

“What part of pirate do you not understand?” Beth replied, giving her a funny look. “And it isn’t necessarily stealing…I mean, she is, no, she _was_ my father’s ship. As his heir, she would have been mine someday. I’m just taking my inheritance a little early.” 

“I’m not going to point out the many flaws in that argument and just focus on the fact that you had your own ship, a good ship, a ship I gave you,” Jim replied gruffly, crossing his arms in front of his chest and glowering at her.

“The Cygnus is a good ship and I will always be thankful for her, but she’s not made from enchanted wood. I can’t sail her on my own.”

“It’s why you hire a crew, love. You’ve never had this issue before.”

“I’ve never had to kill a psychotic goddess before.” 

“You don’t to have kill her. You don’t have to do anything,” he replied softly. 

“We’re not having this discussion again,” she stated in a clipped tone, mirroring his agitated body language and crossing her arms in front of her chest. 

“So, wait, Emma was right? You lied about the squid ink?” Aurora asked, looking uneasy.

Beth and Jim blinked, turning their attention back to the princess. They had entirely forgotten she was there. She had taken a few steps back and was trying very hard not to look frightened, but it was quite clear she was from the way her hands were shaking around the weapons bag. 

“Yeah. She was right. I was lying. I just didn’t want to be stuck in this cell any longer,” Beth replied. 

“And why were you carrying squid ink?”

“For a different time and a different witch. I was being generous for once and look where it got me,” Beth said softly, looking around the cell. “Perhaps we can still find the original squid ink from the cell…that’s how it’s supposed to go…that’s how they got to the lake the first time…” 

“Pardon?” Aurora asked, looking confused.

“I still think there’s squid ink in this cell,” Beth replied. “We’re just not seeing it.”

Jim leaned down, picking up a crumbled piece of paper. It was the parchment that had been covered with her mother’s name left by Rumpelstiltskin. A chill went up Beth’s spine as she stared it. It had made her uneasy the first time she looked it, the uncomfortable feeling hadn’t dissipated in the slightest. 

“Oh, that is super creepy. Like we’re talking _Silence of the Lambs_ creepy or even ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ level of creepy,” she commented over his shoulder.

He gave her an unimpressed look. “Again, with nonsensical references but yes, I agree it’s unnerving…but it’s the only thing left in this cell…What if…I think you’re right, Elizabeth…I think we’ve just been looking at things the wrong way…”

He stood, looking at the bar cells then back at the parchment.

“Are you going to share with the class?” Beth asked, arching an eyebrow. 

“You have your tricks, I have mine,” he responded before blowing gently against the ancient paper. Beth watched in astonishment as the ink flew off the paper in a thick black cloud. The metal bars of the cell once more dissolved in front of her eyes. He gave her a cheeky grin. “Squid ink has many unique properties, love. One of them is that it doesn’t dry.”

“That was legit some David Blaine shit and I live with like ten thousand magic users.” 

“Who the bloody hell is David Blaine?” 

“He’s…ah…I guess, you can say he’s a magician from where I’m from…a famous one,” Beth explained awkwardly. “But that’s really not important. We need to get out of here.” 

“You’re not going anywhere!” Aurora declared, holding up a sword.

Beth snorted, noting how her poor stance and shaky arm. It was quite clear to her that she had never picked up a sword in her life. As she stepped forward, Aurora stepped back. She bit back a laugh.

“You’re holding that sword wrong,” Beth remarked, advancing forward. “That’s my sword you’re holding so it has a special weight. It’s weighted enough for me to hold it perfectly with one hand. It’s light but you have no experience and virtually no training. You're going to get tired. You should be holding it with two hands because of that. I’m assuming you’re right-handed? May I suggest that you place right hand at the top end of the grip and the left at the bottom closer to the pommel? It will give you a wider range of arm movements with a sword…” 

“Don’t patronize me!” Aurora hissed, still stepping backward.

“Your body position is all wrong too,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard her. “You want to have your body at 45-degree angle, left foot ahead of your right. It gives you a firm base of support when acting in defense and makes it more difficult for an enemy to knock you on your ass…I’m not your enemy, Aurora.”

“You aren’t my friend either.”

“Probably not but I’m not going to hurt you or your friends. I have…I guess, you can call it an invested interest in seeing you all alive,” she responded, brushing lock of hair behind her ear. “But I’ve had more than twenty opportunities to kill you and I haven’t. What does that tell you?”

“That you are a terrifying person.”

“She’s not wrong,” Jim responded with an amused chuckle.

“Not helping,” Beth responded, glaring at him. “Look, Aurora, I don’t want to hurt you. I never did, which is why I’m asking you to give us back our swords and let us walk out of here freely without any violence or bloodshed.”

“I have the sword here…” Aurora said in a quivering voice.

“A sword you can barely hold…against me and the moron behind me. It’s two against one but it really doesn’t need to be…”

Aurora didn’t respond immediately but Beth watched as her arm got lower and lower. The sword dropped to the ground with a loud thud, which caused the princess to jump. Beth leaned down and picked up her sword, smiling that the familiar and comfortable weight of it in her hand. 

“Thank you.” 

“If you hurt my friends. I will kill you,” Aurora replied, narrowing her eyes at her.

Beth debated for a brief moment whether to give a typical flippant response and perhaps bring up her doubts that Aurora couldn’t harm a kitten even if she wanted but she refrained. It wasn’t worth it, and she had other things to do.

“Thank you, milady,” Jim said quietly, picking up the weapons bag at Aurora's and hoisting it over his shoulder. He paused, giving Aurora a considering look before reaching into his pockets and pulling out an elegant and intricately designed dagger. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you on your own, so I’m going to give you this. I think you’ll find it more useful than a sword.”

“It looks tiny…” Aurora remarked with a frown.

“Tiny but effective,” Jim responded with a fond smile, twirling in hand. “It was supposed to be a gift for someone who also fits those qualities, but you would appreciate it more than she would…When you use this, you go underhand, not over. Everyone thinks sharp, strong motions are best but it's much more easier and effective to be smooth and quick…go for the throat, the stomach and the jugular. Any place a man is soft, you hear?”

He made a quick demonstration for her, showing her how to use the blade and where directly to hit another person. When he was finished, he handed her the dagger. She took it with a tentative smile.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, turning the weapon over in her hands. “For this…and for not treating me like I’m entirely helpless.”

“You’re not helpless. You just need to learn is all. The world has taught me that tiny women are often the most capable,” he replied gently. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Aurora.”

“Same…good luck to you,” she responded with a nod before glancing over at Beth. “And to you as well.”

Beth merely nodded in response before she and Jim stepped out of the cell, not wanting to risk just how long the squid ink charm would last this time. They walked out of the dungeon in silence, squinting as their eyes readjusted to the harsh light of the sun.

“What do we do now?” Jim asked, pulling out his sword from the weapons bag and placing back in his scabbard.

“We find Lake Nostos and we make sure that my parents get to Storybrooke without killing each other,” Beth replied, sheathing her own sword and reclaiming her daggers from Mulan’s weapons bag. She had felt unnervingly naked without their weight but once she placed them back in their rightful places, she felt tension leave her shoulders.

Jim made a noise of disapproval. “You honestly think that’s a good idea considering the amount of trouble your meddling has already given us?”

 “Well, considering the meddling, it’s only prudent that we ensure the past stays intact,” she argued, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Elizabeth, I don't know how many times I need to tell but your parents are more than capable of getting to Storybrooke and falling in love on their own. We need to worry about our own problems right now, you know? Like getting back to the future?”

She tried to hold back her laughter at his unintentional reference but all she managed to do was make an odd tittering noise. His scowl deepened, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What exactly are you getting so worked up about now?”

“Nothing you need to worry about, Marty McFly,” she responded, shoulders still shaking with suppressed laughter. “But, in all seriousness, Jim, this is my life we’re talking about. If something goes wrong with them, I might no longer exist.”

He gave her a hard look, unmoved by her argument. She bit her lip.

“Also, I think the only person who could help us will be there,” she responded, playing with the frayed ends of her hair. “Rumplestiltskin and Regina aren’t in this realm and while my mother’s magic is on steroids, I doubt she would help us considering she kinda just left us for dead. That leaves Cora…I’m pretty sure she’s the only one with enough magical juice or knowledge to pull off time travel.”

 “You want to make a deal with Cora?” Jim blinked. “I’ve seen sharks friendlier than her.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure she’s Satan but do we really have a choice? Also, it’s not our first devil’s deal. Remember Blackbeard.”

“That isn’t even close to comparable. Blackbeard is a decrepit old man who has been on the verge of keeling over since your father took his leg. Cora has magic _and_  she also has your psychotic father has her lap dog.”

Beth made angry noise in the back of her throat, outraged by his words. He held up a hand to stop her from going off the rails.

“Look, I appreciate the fact you have this whole “Daddy’s little girl” thing going on, but let’s face the facts here, Elizabeth, he is pretty much a huge asshole and also Cora’s bitch.”

“Look, Jim, please. I’ll never ask anything else of you again.” 

He scoffed. “That’s a lie and not even a good one.” 

“Please, Jim…”

He rubbed at his eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh. He looked more exhausted than Beth could remember ever seeing him.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “Alright. We will go to Lake Nostros just to oversee and ensure the past stays intact, but we are observers, not actors. No meddling. No fighting. No deals with Cora. We cannot afford any of it. We seriously can’t.”

When she grinned and clapped her hands together in response, he glowered at her. He held up a hand, jabbing a finger in her face.

“You are not to interfere, Elizabeth. Do you understand me?”

“Of course, I do,” she replied, hitting his shoulder. 

“Will you promise me that you won’t go meddling again?”

“Of course, I won’t!”

“Promise me, Elizabeth. I want to you hear you say it.”

“Okay, okay, I promise. Jeez. I promise not to meddle so long as everything goes smoothly.”

“Good,” he sighed, running his fingers through his hair again. “Alright, how do we get to Lake Nostros? Any ideas?”

 “No fucking clue. Shouldn’t you know? You’re from the Enchanted Forest.”

“You honestly think I know the inland geographies of other kingdoms aside from Solventis?” he asked her incredulously.

“Well, you were in the Royal Navy of Solventis, weren’t you? Aren’t you supposed to have a fancy education and all that shit?”

Jim shook his head in disbelief, not even bothering to answer her question before shouldering the weapons bag and walking off. Beth blinked in surprise. 

“What are you doing?”

“Finding the main road,” he said simply. “We came across one on our way over here. I’m hoping that might give us a sense of direction.” 

It took a matter of thirty seconds to find the main road but without any signs or indication of travel markings. Beth sat down on rotting log while Jim once more pulled at his hair, looking between both directions with an indecisive look on his face. 

“What should we do now, genius?” she asked with no small amount of frustration. “At this rate, my parents are going murder each other and I’m going to fade from existence.” 

He stabbed a finger in her direction. “That is not helping.”

“I don’t know why I’m even having a go at you honestly,” she sighed, looking up at the foliage. “We would need a horse or something to catch up with them.” 

It was then that they hear the neighing and the telltale sound of hooves beating down the dirt path. Immediately, Beth’s eyes went wide, and a wicked grin spread across her lips. She glanced down the road, towards the source of the sound, and sure enough there was a lone rider making his way towards them; a middle-aged man with balding hair and ruddy cheeks. Immediately, her fingers flew to the top of her corset and began pulling at the strings. Jim’s eyes bulged in their sockets.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Getting us a ride,” she replied, tilting her head towards the upcoming rider. “And if I’m going to do that, I’m going to have to show off my best assets.” 

He let out a loud snort, shaking his head in disbelief. “Oh love, I would stop there then. Those aren’t your best assets.”

“Not my best assets?” she repeated, her voice becoming slightly shrill in her indignation. “If they’re not my best assets, then what is, pray tell?”

He let out a rueful chuckle, continuing to shake his head as he stepped forward into her personal space. She lifted her head, chin jutting proudly, in order to keep eye contact with him. A small wry smile graced his lips as he reached forward, his calloused fingers brushing against her cheek.

“Your eyes…” His fingers traced away from her cheek to tangle in her hair, playing gently with the tresses. “And your hair…”

Beth bit her lip, a flush rising to her cheek. Everything inside of her wanted to look away from his intense gaze, to break the moment, but she was raised to face things head on. She was a Jones and that meant she was no coward.

Fortunately for her, Jim broke away first. His eyes left hers and flickered down her body.

 “Your legs too,” he commented as he pivoted backwards and placed more space between them. “If you truly want to play this silly game of yours, I suggest you lose the coat.”

Her jaw dropped, and she stared at him in disbelief. Jim made a point not to look at her though, his eyes trained on the approaching rider. Sensing he wasn’t going to say anything more to qualify his statements, she shifted off her scarlet greatcoat and tossing it over a rotting log. Jim didn’t look at her as he walked further into the trees to hide.

As the rider approached, she placed on the sugariest fake smile she had in her repertoire and waved her hand in the air.

 “Hello! Sir? Can you help a girl out? I’m a bit lost!”

The rider stopped immediately at the sight of her, bringing his horse to a sharp halt. Beth almost felt some sympathy for the poor beast. The man stared at her in astonishment.

“What’s a good lass going like you doing out here all by yourself?”

“I got lost!” She replied in a cheery tone, channeling very valley girl stereotype that she had seen on television. “I _really, really, really_ find my way home…I would be most _appreciative_ of any help you could give me.” 

“Where are you heading, little lady?”

“Lake Nostros.” 

The man laughed. “Lake Nostros? That’s a barren wasteland. Why does a pretty girl like you want to go to a dreadful place like that?”

“Oh, it’s only a meeting spot,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “I’m supposed to meet some friends there. I don’t even know what direction to go in.”

“Wow, you truly are lost,” the man replied, giving her a sympathetic smile. “But no worries, sweeheart. It’s a bit of a ways away on foot but it’s certainly in the direction I’m headed. Lake Nostros is north of here.”

“I would be so incredibly grateful if you helped me get there, kind sir. I don’t have any money, but I can repay… _in other ways_.” 

“In other ways?” The man’s eyebrows rose but he didn’t look put off by the suggestion in her words. 

“Like maybe a kiss?” She laughed, flipping her hair over her shoulder and batting her eyes at him.

“Sounds like a fair price to me. Can’t go wrong with a kiss from a pretty girl,” he responded. “Why don’t you hop on?”

“Why don’t you come down here and I’ll give you that kiss first?”

It was astonishing to Beth just how quickly he complied with her request. The man jumped down from his horse without a single protest. It didn’t even seem to cross his mind that she could be tricking him in order to steal his horse. Never in her life would she even think to be this trusting of a stranger.

As soon as the man got within a yard of her vicinity, Jim stepped out from behind his tree. The man's eyes bulged at the sight of him and he gave Beth a look of pure betrayal before Jim knocked him swiftly over the head. The harsh blow caused the man’s eyes to roll back into his head and he fell backward like a pile of bricks.

“That was almost too easy,” she remarked, shaking her head.

“Don’t say things like that,” Jim hissed. “We’ve had nothing but bad luck during this entire fiasco. Do not bring more upon us.” 

“Okay, okay, okay, cranky pants. Let’s just get the horse and get out of here!”

The horse wasn’t initially happy with her new riders but after some gentle attention and stroking from Jim, she allowed them to climb onto her without much complaint. Beth was surprised at his handling of the beast, unaware of his horse-whispering talents. However, before she could comment on it, the horse switched from walk into a full-blown gallop. The sudden change in speed caused her to fold her arms tightly around Jim’s waist in hopes of not falling off. She had ridden horses in the past but never at this pace and she found that she wasn’t entirely fond of the experience. It was uncomfortable, and she kept wondering if she was going to get bumped off.

It wasn’t long before the trees began to thin out and they were suddenly on an open stretch of land with little vegetation. In the distance, Beth could see some fighting had commenced.

“That’s not good,” she muttered under her breath.

“Elizabeth…” Jim growled, his voice full of warning.

“I know, I know, cool your jets,” she hissed back at him, her eyes trained on the combat taking place in front of them.

 As they got closer, Beth was able to make out the movements amongst the combatants. Mulan was no where to be seen while Snow was taking on Cora and it looked like she was struggling. However, that was not the fight that caught Beth’s attention.

It was her parents.

A wave of panic hit her like a tsunami as she watched them fight. Emma was struggling, fighting with a sword that was obviously too heavy with her while Hook danced around her. He wasn’t trying, Beth realized very quickly. He was playing with her like the same way a lion toyed with mouse.

“Get me off this fucking thing!” Beth hissed. 

“What are you doing?” Jim questioned, looking back at her with a frown. 

“Let me off!” she shouted in his ear.

He slowed the horse into a walk and Beth didn’t wait for him to stop. She did a push jump off the animal, almost getting her leg caught in the process.

“Elizabeth!” Jim shouted in alarm, but Beth ignored him.

She landed ungracefully into the dirt, hissing as rocks dug into her legs and the sensitive skin of her palms. Every part of her hurt and a part of her acknowledged that but it was immediately shoved the back of her mind as she focused on the issue at hand.

The fresh scrapes on her palms and the intense pain her legs were the least of her concerns especially when her future father had successfully pushed her future mother into the dirt, sneering at her in victory. Beth didn’t think, she pushed herself off the ground and grabbed for her sword.

Emma was struggling, holding her sword against Hook’s while he sneered down at her in victory, pressing his blade and hook against Emma’s. 

“Normally, I’d prefer to do other more enjoyable activities with a woman on her back. But with my life on the line, you’ve left me no choice. Bit of advice, when I jab you with my sword, you’ll feel it. You might”— “Hey Casanova! Feel this!” Beth shouted, kicking him in the side and knocking him off balance.

Emma took advantage of the moment, rolling away from Hook with pulling a golden compass out from underneath her. She looked at Beth in bewilderment. “What the hell?”

“Miss me?” She smirked.

“That was bad form, love,” Hook glared at her, regaining his balance and lifting his sword in Beth’s direction. “And not only was that bad form, it was incredibly unwise.”

“Is that supposed to scare me?” Beth replied, raising both her sword and her head in defiance.

Hook chuckled darkly. “Still playing pirate, love?” 

“Oh, I’m not playing,” she responded, beginning to circle him. “I _am_ a pirate.”

“Let’s see how good your form is, then.”

Beth had been sparring with her father as long as she could remember. When she was a little girl, it had been just playing with wooden practice swords and getting ice cream afterwards. As she had gotten older, those fights had become more serious and sometimes wood was traded for steel in order to simulate a real battles. When she turned eighteen, she had won her first spar and it was one of the proudest moments of her life. Though, she had given her father yet another scar, he had proud of her, hugging her and telling her that she would surpass him as a swordsman.

None of those fights had prepared her for this. Perhaps it was because her father had aged a few decades since his prime sword fighting years or because he had never honestly tried his best against his daughter, but Beth was startled by the strength and viciousness powering his strikes. She was able to deflect them, but she could feel the strain in her arms and the rattling of her bones in her hand with every connection of their swords. He was stronger than her, that much was obvious, but she was one or two steps faster. She just needed an opening.

“You’ve got decent form, love. You know what you’re doing, I’ll give you that, but you’re fighting a master,” Hook smirked at her as he twirled around in her in a cocky move.

Beth narrowed her eyes at him. 

“My form isn’t decent,” she hissed furiously at him. “It’s the best.”

And with that declaration, she did a spin of her own. Her red greatcoat flared out and around her like a matador’s flag. She struck his bicep, her blade digging into the leather but not hard enough to get through both layers of his jacket and tunic. Hook looked astonished that she had actually hit him. He stared, looking at her like she was some sort of alien species.

“I know that set…Who are you and who taught you that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she responded sharply, not lowering her weapon.

“Perhaps I would,” he responded before shrugging his shoulders to shed his leather jacket. It fell to the dirt with a thunderous thud. “You’re quite the swordsman. It’s really just a pity.”

It wasn’t until he lunged forward did Beth realized that she had grossly miscalculated just how fast her father was. Without his giant leather coat, he was fast – _faster_ than her. It became apparent when she felt the steel of his blade slice against her collarbone, causing her to let out a sharp cry. The force of the blow sent her stumbling backwards. She clutched at her shoulder with her free hand, trying to assess the damage but with her heart thudding her ears, the only think she could process was that her palm was wet. 

“There is no shame in this defeat,” Hook smirked. “You were talented. There aren’t many individuals who are fast or strong enough to take me on. I actually had afford the weight of my coat to face you. That in itself is an honor.”

“Go fuck yourself,” she spat, already reaching for one of the daggers attached to her belt. If he moved to strike her, she would nick the inside of his right arm. If she did it correctly, it would cause enough damage to his favored arm to slow him down and allow her to escape without having to resort to killing her own father.

Hook moved to strike, and Beth moved to slash forward with her dagger, but neither was happened as Hook was hit with the pommel of Jim’s sword, sending him flying into the dirt. He scowled down at Hook’s form, looking absolutely furious. 

“I told you not to meddle,” he snapped at her in a steely tone. 

“Yeah, well, Hook was about to kill Emma. I couldn’t let that happen,” she scowled. 

“And nearly got yourself killed in the process.”

“Yeah, well, I thought I could handle it, considering I can nearly beat you.”

“That’s not funny, Elizabeth,” he whispered angrily.

“Yeah, I’m not laughing either,” she muttered, pulling her hand away from her shoulder and examining the amount of blood on her hand. There was no way to gage how bad the cut was until she removed her coat but there was no time to do that.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Hook called, his words slurring as he back up from the dirt. Beth was pretty sure the man was suffering from a concussion after the massive hit he had taken from Jim.

“If no one asks me that question for the rest of my life it will be too soon,” she muttered under her breath, trying to gage if she had enough time to grab her sword before Hook attacked again.

Once more, the calculations were unnecessary as Emma appeared, tapped Hook on the shoulder and punched him in the face. None of them had expected that, especially not Hook as he fell to the ground, this time unconscious.

“She is so your mom,” Jim whispered.

“Of course, she is! What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Beth whispered back furiously. She didn’t wait for response, immediately turning her attention to Emma. “Hey! Don’t you have a portal to catch?”

“Just who are you, _Casanova_?” Emma asked, glowering at them. 

“Busted,” Jim mumbled. 

“Shut up,” Beth hissed back, looking back at her sword laying in the dirt and then back at Emma. “Interesting question. But the more important one is why the hell are you asking me when you can get back to Henry?”

“Because you could be a threat. To my son. To Storybrooke. You say you aren’t, but you have done nothing but lie and you know things you shouldn’t. How do I know you’re not one of them trying to trick me?” 

“Are you serious? I just saved your life!” 

“Debatable,” Emma scoffed. “Now answer the question. Who. Are. You?”

“You really want to know?” 

“Yes! That’s why I’m asking!”

"Unfortunately, we don't have time for that question. You need to go!"

Beth braced herself, bending her knees before she lunged forward into a sprint. She barreled into her and pressed against Emma’s chest with all of her strength. Emma lurched backwards, falling into the portal. Beth crumbled into the dirt, her finger almost grazing the edge of it. She stared into the churning vortex, unable to see anything but darkness.

Her mother was on her way back to Storybrooke.

“Emma!” Snow cried, turning her attention away from Cora and staring at the portal.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” Beth shouted out. “Go!”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Though, Beth wasn’t entirely sure she heard her as Snow gave her no acknowledgement as she went sprinting towards the portal and jumped into it, narrowly missing one of Cora’s magic blasts. Beth rolled onto her back and breathed a sigh of relief.

 “That was very foolish of you,” an oily woman’s voice called out.  

“What was?”

“You and your large companion should have gone through the portal yourselves. Now, you’re left behind with me and I’m about to make things very unpleasant for you…”

“Now, why would you do such a thing like that?” Beth asked, cracking an eye open and looking up at the scowling Queen of Hearts. “Especially when I have a way for you to cross realms? That’s what you’re after isn’t it? Crossing realms?”

When they had been in Rumpelstiltskin’s cell, Beth hadn’t paid much attention to Cora. She had been too busying being emotionally devastated by her parents to give much thought to the old crone. Though, now that she was actually looking at the woman, she couldn’t help but privately thinking that the woman’s face reminded her somewhat of a frog. Or at least if she did from an upwards looking angle. 

“I’m listening,” Cora replied with an arched eyebrow, a warning lingering behind her measured tone. “But it better be good.” 

“What if I told you that I had not just one, but potentially, two magic beans?” Beth asked casually as she pulled herself up from the ground, wincing in pain as adrenaline and tiredness hit her system and made her injuries seem even sharper.

“I would say that you better not be lying because you’ll lose your tongue.” 

“I’m not lying. I have two magic beans. And I’m willing to give you both of them…for a price.”

“Now, why would I pay you when I can just take them by force?” Cora asked with a sickening smile as she plunged her hand into Beth’s chest.

It was a painful experience having someone forcibly reach into her chest without her consent. There were no words to describe it other than invasion and even that was limited in its capacity because it described merely the act and not the pain involved with it. In the background, she could hear Jim screaming her name. His voice was loud and hysterical with fear, not that she necessarily blamed him. After all, if it were anyone else in the world, this would have been her dying moment.

Which was one of the reasons why it was so satisfying to see the look of confusion on Cora’s face when she realized that she couldn’t take Beth’s heart. If every part of her part wasn’t in pain, Beth would have laughed at the expression on her face. 

“Where is it?” 

“Where is what?” Beth asked, trying to sound as casual as she could with someone’s hand in her chest.

“Where is your heart?”

“Oh, that old thing…My heart is where it always has been.”

“It’s most certainly not in your chest,” Cora hissed, narrowing her eyes at her.

“Well, you know what they say? Never bring your heart to a witch fight!” Beth remarked, a surge of raw power prickling to the surface as her magic rose forth on instinct to protect her.

Cora was sent flying back, a look of incredulous disbelief plastered across her face as she fell into the dirt. Beth grimaced, her skin feeling hot and uncomfortable. She hated using magic and it often made her feel itchy for days. She didn’t know how any magic user found it comfortable.

“You don’t have your heart,” Jim whispered, staring at her in horror.

Beth opened her mouth to say something but couldn’t find the words. She just gave him a helpless shrug before turning her attention back to Cora. 

“You have magic…” The older woman murmured, wiping blood away from the fresh cut on her forehead. “How did I not see this before…”

“It’s not something I advertise,” Beth replied, crossing her arms in front of her chest and glaring at her. “Now that we have gotten that out of the way, would you care to make a deal?”

“What do you want?” Cora asked, narrowing her eyes at her.

“I’m willing to give you and Hook two magic beans…” she repeated. “If you help us get home.”

“Get home?” Cora repeated. “You don’t need me for that if you have magic beans.”

“You see that’s the issue. My home isn’t the type that can be reached just by using a magic bean. You see it’s not realm travel that I seek…but rather, travel time…”

“That’s impossible,” Cora snapped. “Everyone knows that.”

“Not true,” she replied, stepping forward. “Your daughter accomplished it.”

“Regina?”

“No…” Beth stepped closer, lowering her voice so that only Cora could hear her. “ _Zelena_.”

Cora’s eyes bulged in surprise. She took three steps back. “How did you acquire this information?”

“I didn’t see it firsthand, but I know from the woman herself and from the parties involved in the incident. It has been, will happen, is happening...the tense terminology around it is confusing but all you need to know is that Zelena accomplished it." 

“How was it achieved?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Beth responded, giving a shrug. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

Cora pursed her lips, not impressed with her response. She looked backwards at the unconscious Hook and then back at Beth. A queer light entered her eyes and a small little smirk twisted on her lips. It made Beth’s stomach tangled itself in knots. 

“Interesting…” 

“What’s so interesting?” Beth asked, almost afraid of the answer.

“I was just wondering to myself how a woman with your potential destroys herself and her opportunities the way she does and honestly, it comes down the breeding and upcoming, doesn’t it?”

“What does this have to do with our deal?” Beth hissed.

“Honestly? Not much. However, it does bring amusement to the situation. Your parents wasted you.”

“Can you get us back home or what?” 

“You’re quite the precocious child. Tell me, my dear, you’re from the future, aren’t you?” 

Beth remained silent, not sure whether or not she should answer. She glanced longingly at her sword, feeling naked without it in hand.

Cora seemed to take her silence as her answer.

“You’re his child. Its why you were so hesitant to fight,” Cora scoffed. “That’s why you’re a pirate and not living up to your full potential. I pity your mother. Your power must come from her.”

 

Beth’s mouth opened to argue, to defend herself and her parents but Cora cut her off with a question.

“Tell me this, Elizabeth Swann…Do I ever see my daughter again?”

Beth paused, considering the question. The honest answer was that she didn’t know whether Cora would see Regina or Zelena ever again. However, she knew this answer was the wrong one to say. She had little doubt that the woman wouldn’t help her if she was honest.

“Yes,” she lied. 

Cora studied her face for a moment before she pulled out a talisman for the inside of her robes, playing with it in her palm. She let out a low chuckle. 

“Do you know what this is?” 

“No idea,” Beth replied honestly.

“It looks like a simple trinket, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. It’s one of the most powerful magical devices in all the realms, created by the sorceress Morgana herself.”

She held it up, allowing Beth to see it. As Cora had pointed out, it didn’t look special. The talisman was circular and made of wood with a large rune carved into the middle of it.

“This has been handy over the years. It’s based on blood magic but incredibly powerful blood magic. It allows the user to teleport across any realm to any place...where the user has spilled their blood.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“As I stated before, it was made by Morgana so it’s a powerful magic...perhaps powerful enough to transport you back. You’re from the future. You haven’t spilled any significant blood in this time...it may not respond to it or may not...it’s just a theory...but it’s the only thing you’ve got.”

“That’s all you’re offering me. A wooden talisman and a half-baked theory in return for two magic beans? Are you kidding?”

“It looks to me like you don’t have much of a choice, my dear. You’re boxed in and...I would make my decision quickly if I were you as my charitable mood is running out...”

Beth looked back at Jim, hoping that he would give her a notion of what he was thinking but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at his feet, his jaw clenched and brows furrowed. When it was clear that she wasn’t going to get anything from him, she made an executive decision.

Keeping her eyes on Cora, she reached down and pulled a small cloth bundle from her boot. She opened it and took all but two beans from it’s contents, placing them in her right pocket. She then bundled the two beans again and held it up so Cora could see it.

“Place the talisman on the ground. I will do the same and we can both be on our merry way.”

Cora gave her a shark-like grin. “Pleasure doing business with you, my dear.”

“I wish I could do the same but then again, you did try to steal my heart...”

Cora places the talisman on the ground, backing away and giving Beth a look of amusement.

“I believe, it’s now your move.”

Beth said nothing as she snatched the talisman as quickly as she could and placed the cloth bundle of magic beans in its place. She returned to Jim’s side, pulling out one of her daggers and trying to catch his eye.

He still wouldn’t look at her.

“Ready to get out of here?” She asked, keeping an eye trained on Cora. She didn’t trust the other woman to try to fire blast them when they weren’t looking. 

“Let’s get it over with,” he responded in a hollow voice, still staring down at his feet.

“I’m going to need to cut your palm, just a small nick. Blood magic unfortunately needs blood.”

“Just do what you need to do,” he snapped at her and she nearly jumped at the anger in his voice.

“Alright, mister cranky pants,” she huffed, snatching his hand and raising the dagger. She made a small incision against his palm, followed by a cut on her own. She placed both hands on the talisman, letting their bleeding palms come in contact the time. The pull of magic was instantaneous.

There was a reason Beth hated magic aside from the fact she was bad at controlling it and that reason was the feeling she got whenever she was engulfed it in. The magic of the talisman felt similar to Circe’s magic; head pounding, stomach dropping and the general feeling of being put through a trash compactor. The only way to describe was falling from the top of a forty-story building while wearing an ever-tightening corset.

The landing was harsh, reminding her of when she tried to do a belly flop of the Jolly Roger when she was a child. The pain wasn’t immediate, but still the shock of it made her teeth rattle.

All pain was forgotten however when she took notice of her surroundings. A hysterical laughed escaped her lips.

She was in the captain’s quarters of the Jolly Roger and not just any captain’s quarters, hers. Rum bottles littered the desk alongside bottles of dried ink while pillows scattered the floor around the unmade bunk. Her obnoxiously large pile of laundry was still settled in the corner by the door. Her father would never dream of the cabin being in such a state. He would have a stroke at the sight of it.

Not caring how dirty it was, she kissed the wooden flooring in relief. She had never been so happy to see the old pile of planks and a sail. It was her home. More than her old ship. More than Storybrooke. More than anything in the world. The talisman had proved that. Her blood had spilt here, infused in the wood. It had stolen her just as much as she had stolen it.

“I love you,” she whispered to the ship, lips still brushing against the wood. “More than anything.”

There was a loud rustling behind her. She immediately looked up to see Jim rummaging through her things. He was going through one of her chests, tossing shirts, bras and leggings without care. He looked like a man possessed. 

“What the hell are you doing?” She asked, getting to her feet. Her knees protested and the muscles in her legs made their displeasure known once more but she ignored them.

He stopped pawing through her things and looked up at her with an intense expression she had never seen from him before. She was used to his brooding looks. He had a temperament like a summer storm, charged and thunderous, but this wasn't it. Nothing had prepared her for how he was looking at her now.

“Where is it?” Each word was said slow and purposefully, holding its own weight.

Immediately she knew what he was looking for. She had always known this would be his reaction. Jim Hawkins was loyal and selfless, but he was also self-righteous and judgmental, which is why she hadn’t told him about her heart in the first place. He just didn’t understand.

She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the battle to come. This was going to be ugly. Heat Storm Hawkins versus Hurricane Elizabeth. Letting out a heavy sigh and trying to remain calm, she gave him the same answer that she gave Cora.

“I said what I said. My heart is where it has always been.”

His eyes flashed. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He squared his shoulders, standing at his full height. Jim Hawkins was a large man, not as large as her brother Harrison but certainly large enough where he could easily be seen as intimidating. He loomed over her, getting into her personal space and making every hair on her body stand on end. Anger coiled in her stomach like a snake ready to strike.

“The cheek of you,” he replied in a low voice. Normally when he said this, it was amused and affectionate. Now it was nothing short of reproachful. “The absolute cheek of you, to think after everything we’ve been through, everything that has happened, that you can give me bullshit lie that you gave that cunt.”

She hated herself for it, but she flinched at that last word as it was spat from his lips. The term was used every other word around the ports by angry sailors, but Jim Hawkins had never used it in her company before. He had always found the word distasteful and had commented in the past on its degrading nature towards women, thus the reason for its infrequent usage in his lexicon. It was one of the things she liked about him.

“My heart is where it has always been,” she repeated.

He slammed his fist against the wall, a loud boom resonating through the room. Baskets hanging from the ceiling swung violently and oranges toppled from their perches onto the floor. Neither of them made much note of the incident, still staring at each other.

“Stop. Lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Yes, you are! You’re always lying!” he shouted, face now red as he jabbed a finger in her direction. “You lie to everyone! Your friends! Your family! Your crew! Even yourself! But you can’t do that, not to me! You can’t lie to me.”

“Jim…”

He paced around her. She had seen him do this so many times before when she had been on the Silver Spell as a teenager. He would circle the captains of the ships he had raided, laying out their crimes before tossing them overboard. She never thought he would do it to her. 

“I’ve never struck a woman in my life,” he said after a moment of pacing. “But, I swear to the gods, Elizabeth Jones, you test me in more ways than one. Just tell me where it is. I won’t ask again.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” 

“I just…can’t.”

“Just tell me, Elizabeth, please.” The anger in his voice was now underlined by a hint of desperation.

“No.”

“Tell me!” he bellowed, and she was so startled by it that she stumbled back.

 However, she got her bearings back quickly, balling her fists. She took two steps forward, making up for her small retreat.

“I can’t,” she repeated firmly. “I cannot tell you because I know exactly what would happen if I did…you would get it and you would hold it and you would force it back into my chest and I…I don’t want it, Jim. I don’t want it back because having it back means everything I’ve been feeling will be ten times worse and it will hurt even more, and I can’t handle it, Jim…I can’t…I can’t…I won’t…and you cannot make me.”

He stopped pacing. Before she even knew it, he was standing directly in front of her with his hands wrapped around her biceps. He was hovering far too close, his nose practically brushing against her forehead. 

“How could you do this to yourself? This…this goes beyond...” he paused, swallowing heavily. “I don’t even…This is beyond self-loathing, beyond mutilation…Why?” 

“Because it hurts…” 

He let go of her quickly and she stumbled backwards again. He ran his hands over his face and Beth could see very clearly that they were shaking violently.

“It’s more than that.” He looked positively devastated. “It’s a lot more than that. That might be part of the reason but it’s not the whole reason. The truth is that you don’t want to change.”

“What?”

“You don’t want to change,” he repeated with a humorless laugh. “You’re still going to go after her and you don’t care if you kill anyone or yourself in the process. You’re still trying to be him. Even after everything we just went through…”

“Of course, I am!” she shouted, wanting nothing more than to hit him. “Will is dead! She killed him instead of me. It’s my grave that should be empty, not his! I can’t let that go, Jim. I can’t.” 

“Oh, for once your life, tell the truth! This isn’t about Will. It has _never_ been about your fish prince. It’s been about you. And it’s been about your father.”

 “What are you talking about?”

“You know, I never understood it…You loved him, I will give you that. He wasn’t your whole world though. You have your family, your friends, your crew…the biggest support system in the world…I don’t need to meet them to know that you are very much loved…and most of all…you had me.” His voice softened on the last three words before the sternness in his voice returned. “But it's not closure or comfort or even revenge you’re after. You want to be him. I don’t know why but you’re chasing after your father’s coattails and let me be honest with you, love, I’m not impressed. It’s one-way ticket to an early grave.”

“That's not true!”

“It is true! Open your eyes, Elizabeth! From the moment I met you, you’ve been trying to be Captain Hook, who for all intents and purposes, was a bastard and a villain. You have this romantic notion of him in your head because he’s your father and he gave you kisses and sweets as a child but he wasn’t a hero. And judging by the fact you exist, he realized that. Captain Hook didn’t even want to be Captain Hook. I’m sure if your father knew what you were doing, he would want to be heartless too.”

Every word that came out of his mouth felt like a chisel chipping away at her soul. If it had been anyone else, she might have brushed it off, but Jim had always been her pillar of support and had never wavered from the position until now. She could feel tears threatening to brim the corners of her eyes. She moved forward and pushed him roughly against his chest, causing him to fall backward a few steps.

“Fuck you, Jim!” she snarled at him. She had said those words a thousand times, to the point it was almost a joke. Now, she meant them.

He straightened himself and chuckled darkly, shaking his head. 

“You know, I never liked him. Your fish prince. I’m sure he had his charms, but I never felt he saw you. He saw the face and the charisma, thought he found himself a queen to bear little heirs and look pretty on a throne. He never saw the vanity and the selfishness…the wildness…the war in your soul…the wolf…that poor little fish. Never realized that as much as you adored him, you would have gutted him in an instant if you had to. He never saw the iron hiding underneath beauty.”

“If I’m so horrible, then why are you here?”

“Because I liked your iron. I saw your flaws, Elizabeth, but I always felt you were greater than them. Greater than me. Greater than anything. You were the first person I ever met that I felt could take over the world if you wanted to. Which is why despite the fact I never liked your fish prince, he and I agreed one thing. We agreed that protecting you was the most important thing in the world.”

“I don’t want your protection. I never did!” 

“Not wasn’t about needing or wanting, love, but I wouldn’t want my protection either. I can’t protect you, not when your biggest enemy is yourself. I can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”

The anger on his face wavered and was replaced with a look of resignation. He placed his hands on her shoulders, looking down at her with a sad smile.

“It turns out Will and I are more alike than I thought. He saw an idealized version of you and I realize now I’ve been doing the same thing. I keep looking at you and expecting to see the girl who I danced with on the deck of the Spell…she’s not here anymore. She hasn’t been for a while now…”

“Jim, I…” The words died on her lips. She didn’t know what to say to him. She looked up at him helplessly.

“I can’t do this anymore.” His words took the very breath from her lungs. She felt like she had been sucker punched.

“What are you saying?”

“You’re going down a path I can’t follow and it’s best that we part company now because I can’t watch you self-destruct. I can’t bear that. I wouldn’t survive it.”

“You can’t leave! You promised!” she shouted, shaking her head violently.

She pushed his hands away, taking a step back. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This couldn't be happening. There had only been one thing she had been sure of in her life and that was that Jim Hawkins would never leave her. Now, the impossible seemed to be happening.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your apologies!” she hissed at him. “I don’t want anything from you! I once thought you were the bravest and most loyal man in existence, but I was wrong. You are nothing but a coward.”

“Better a coward than broken. And that’s all I see when I look at you.” 

He leaned forward and placed a fleeting kiss on her forehead. The gesture only angered her more. She moved to slap him, but he caught her hand effortlessly and held it front of him, so he could inspect it.

“If you somehow survive this, I pray you find a way to make peace with what you have done to yourself, to your family, to me, to others. Because I know once the smoke clears, once scales fall from your eyes, and once you’ve seen what you’ve become, I don’t think you’re going to like it. But know this, Elizabeth…Though, this is the end of our partnership, I wish you nothing but good fortune in the years to come.”

“Fuck you!” She tried to yank her hand away, but he held fast. He tilted his head down and placed another brief kiss upon her knuckles. When he pulled away, he looked her straight in the eye.

“If somehow the Beth I love re-inhabits your body, you know where to find me, but until you realize this mission of yours is nothing but a dead end, all I can say is that you will be in my prayers and bid you farewell.”

He let go of her hand and gave her a sweeping bow before turning and walking away. She couldn’t look at him, nausea rising in the back of her throat with every step he took. Every fiber of her being was screaming, pleading silently that he would turn around and change his mind, but he didn’t. She flinched as he slammed the door to her quarters behind him, squeezing her eyes shut and tears quietly dribbling down her cheeks.

Not for the first time, Beth Jones was glad she didn’t have her heart. If she did, she would have felt it break.


End file.
